Transport of nearly $1 million worth of meth lands Canby man 17+ years in prison

Article author: 
Helen Jung
Article publisher: 
OregonLive.com
Article date: 
Monday, July 28, 2014
Article category: 
Crime
Medium
Article Body: 

Omar Martinez Rodriguez showed such little sophistication in drug trafficking that he stuffed 22 pounds of methamphetamine worth close to $1 million into two coolers for the road trip from California to Oregon, his lawyers said.

...Martinez Rodriguez was just a bit player – a courier, not a kingpin.

...sentencing him to more than 17 years in prison. The federal judge said he believed Martinez Rodriguez was planning to sell the meth – some 40,000 doses worth, according to prosecutors.

"You didn't have a chance to capitalize on it, and that's the only thing that saved you from being even more involved as a distributor," Jones said in U.S. District Court in Portland. He noted Martinez Rodriguez' previous assault convictions as well as the undocumented immigrant's illegal re-entry to the United States just months before his September 2013 arrest. "It sounds like you didn't learn anything from going to prison," he said.

Martinez Rodriguez must also serve five years of supervised release, and if he is deported must first get approval from governmental agencies before he may return to the United States.

Martinez Rodriguez was targeted in an investigation, and an informant made arrangements to buy meth from him, according to the government's sentencing memorandum. Authorities learned that his phone was in California, and they began following him after he entered Oregon.

Police conducted a traffic stop around Salem and found the drugs in the coolers ...