PORTLAND — A Bronx woman who supplied illegal narcotics for a “trap house” in West Paris was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 41 months in prison on a federal charge of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute drugs, including crack cocaine.
Geraldine Rodriguez
Prosecutors said Geraldine “Gigi” Rodriguez, 33, and co-defendant Yashim “Scotty” Gomez, also from the Bronx, sold illegal narcotics, including crack cocaine, out of a home in West Paris starting in August 2019.
She had faced a sentence of up to 40 years on the felony drug charge.
They bought the drugs in New York City from a supplier and drove to Maine together for distribution at their West Paris apartment, according to court documents.
On Oct. 28, 2019, Rodriguez, Gomez and two other people drove in a van from New York to Maine carrying 382 grams of crack and powder cocaine that the four people meant to sell from the West Paris apartment, or “stash house,” prosecutors said.
Maine State Police stopped the van on the Maine Turnpike and executed a search warrant for the van. Police recovered crack cocaine from a pink bag that belonged to Rodriguez, along with other evidence of drug crimes, according to court documents.
After she was arrested, Rodriguez told authorities she and Gomez had sold drugs out of the West Paris house and that she had sold drugs with him on a few occasions.
In a sentencing memorandum, Rodriguez’s attorney, Randall Bates, said his client suffered a major mental decline after her mother died and she lost custody of her young son. That was when she turned to abusing a “variety of substances,” in a “misguided attempt to cope with a serious untreated mental health condition (depression,)” Bates wrote in court documents.
Rodriguez, who had been released from jail pending sentencing, told U.S. District Court Chief Judge Jon D. Levy Wednesday that she is taking prescription medication to treat depression and anxiety and to help her sleep.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Noah Falk noted that, although Rodriguez was charged with a “serious crime,” involving the distribution of “significant quantities” of crack and powder cocaine over a “lengthy period of time,” her conduct while free on bail has been “exemplary” in her ability to abide by conditions of release.
Bates remarked that his client’s “transformation is remarkable” from the time she was arrested to the time of sentencing.
“She really isn’t the same person,” he said.
Rodriguez is required to report to prison to begin serving her sentence by Jan. 4, 2023.
After her release, she will be on supervised release for four years.
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