'Large-scale' Windsor coke dealer gets 7 1/4 years
May 14—A Windsor man described by a federal prosecutor as a "large-scale cocaine trafficker" was sentenced Wednesday to 7 1/4 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Leonard C. Boyle announced.
The case against the man, Omrys Delgado, 33, grew out of an investigation of Jesus Rodriguez, a Hartford letter carrier who has listed an address on King Street in East Hartford.
Large-scale drug dealers would have their suppliers mail kilogram parcels of cocaine to fictitious people on Rodriguez's postal route, and Rodriguez would deliver the packages instead to the drug dealers or people working with them, according to a sentencing memorandum by prosecutor Geoffrey M. Stone.
Charges remain pending against Rodriguez and a number of other defendants in the case.
The investigation included court-authorized taps of cellphone communications between Rodriguez and Delgado, and the prosecutor recounted three of what he called "multiple examples" of their arranging cocaine deliveries.
One resulted in seizure of a parcel containing 2 kilograms of cocaine on Feb. 25, 2019.
Another led to surveillance of a man who took a package from Rodriguez and another man he may have turned it over to on March 19, 2019. But that episode ended without an arrest or drug seizure when the second man "sped away in a dangerous manner, causing investigators to call off the pursuit," the prosecutor wrote.
Later in March 2019, investigators again overheard Rodriguez and Delgado setting up what appeared to be a cocaine delivery. This time, Delgado took a parcel directly from Rodriguez, according to the prosecutor.
Investigators then tried to stop Delgado's car, but he "led investigators on a dangerous, high-speed pursuit," which ended only when investigators forced his car onto the grassy median of Interstate 91, according to the prosecutor. They found the parcel in the car and later confirmed that it contained a little more than a kilogram of cocaine, the prosecutor added.
The prosecutor said the evidence established that Delgado was involved in the distribution of 5 to 15 kilograms of cocaine.
The prosecutor argued for a nine-year prison sentence, while defense lawyer Margaret P. Levy argued for the mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
Judge Vanessa L. Bryant, who sits in U.S. District Court in Hartford, ultimately decided on the sentence of 87 months, or 7 1/4 years, which will be followed by four years of supervised release, which is similar to probation.
Levy said in her sentencing memo that Delgado began using marijuana at age 14, alcohol at age 15, and the prescription opioid Percocet at age 28.
Following his arrest in May 2019 and his subsequent release on bond, Delgado participated in substance abuse counseling for about a year and remained drug-free until he admitted to a federal probation officer in February that he had recently used marijuana and prescription opiates. Levy attributed the relapse to "his nervousness about leaving his sons and entering prison."
In the almost two years he has been free on bond, Delgado has attended trade school, acquiring skills in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, and has worked full time, according to the defense lawyer.
The prosecutor agreed that he deserved credit for these accomplishments, which was part of his reason for advocating a sentence at the low end of the range recommended by federal guidelines.
The judge gave Delgado until Aug. 18 to report to prison.
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