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By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, Patreon
Honduras - The Source - The Root - etc

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Oct 24 –Ricky Rosa was charged in 2018 along with 13 co-defendants with a narcotics conspiracy operating out of 501 West 167th Street in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. On October 24 he pled guilty to a lesser included offense before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistristrate Judge Debra Freeman.

    Even with the initially charged one kilogram of heroin from the initial indictment gone, Rosa's plea agreement with the US Attorney's Office provides for a sentencing guideline of 168 to 210 months.

    Chief Judge Colleen McMahon to whom the overall case is assigned can, of course, go below or above this guideline. In a three and a half hour sentencing proceeding for LIBOR manipulation also held on October 24, two financial services executives were given sentences of time served with six and nine months of home confinement, the latter to be served in the United Kingdom and both stayed pending appeal.

   In a bail hearing on November 19, 2019, Assistant US Attorney Dominic A. Gentile said that the Drug Trafficking Organization that Ricky Rosa was charged with being a part of "controls the entire building... it stations somebody at the door, it controls access to and egress from the building. The person at the door, who is an organization member, will only allow residents of the building in, people whom the residents identify as people that should be allowed in, and / or customers of the organization."

   As to Rosa's role, AUSA Gentile at the bail hearing said, "We allege that the defendant is one of those people who stayed inside the building and sold heroin  to customers in that area... heroin mixed with Fentanyl."   Judge McMahon replied, "I've already had a heroin mixed with Fentanyl case so it is not unique. It's bad, but it's not unique."   

   But perhaps the packaging and branding were. Gentile said, "glycines of heroin were found with the identifying stamps that this organzation used to make their product: Ras Baraka and Porsche."

   Ricky Rosa to get this plea deal waived any right to appeal a sentence of less than 210 months. He will be sentenced by Chief Judge McMahon but the date is not yet set, in US v. Ricky Rosa, 18-cr-802-CM-10. The overall case is US v. De Lima, 18-cr-802 (McMahon).