Former Miami-Dade police detective faces prison for protecting pot ring
A fired Miami-Dade County police detective who partied with and protected an infamous marijuana-distribution ring is likely to receive several years in prison at his sentencing in Miami federal court Tuesday morning.
Roderick Silva, a highly valuable asset for the now-imprisoned Santiesteban family, pleaded guilty in April to protecting its violent pot organization, making Silva the 21st and possibly last defendant to be convicted in the long-running federal case.
Silva, who joined the Miami-Dade force in 2003, was charged last year with aiding and abetting the family's distribution racket and with extortion for accepting $1,500 to keep quiet about its illegal drug business.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the extortion charge as part of his plea deal. Under federal sentencing guidelines, the 46-year-old Silva faces between three and four years in prison before U.S. District Judge Robert Scola, though he has the authority to punish him outside that range.
The plea agreement, negotiated between lead prosecutor Pat Sullivan and defense attorney Nathan Diamond, revolves around Silva's role in helping the notorious Miami-based organization distribute between 100 and 400 kilos of powerful hydroponically grown marijuana in the Northeast.
In his plea agreement, Silva admitted that he tipped off ringleader Derrick Santiesteban about upcoming Miami-Dade police raids in exchange for hefty payments. Silva, a former narcotics detective, came to know him through his younger brother, David, at coke-snorting parties, according to prosecutors.
“Silva gave Derrick handwritten lists of suspected grow houses, so he could determine if any of [his] were under suspicion or about to be raided,” according to court records. “Derrick would pay [Silva] $1,000 for these lists."
He also gave the clan tips on how to avoid police and even passed along misinformation to his fellow detectives about the Santiesteban family's large-scale operation, according to a factual statement filed with the plea agreement.
And, he revealed the locations of rival marijuana grow houses, information the Santiestebans used in home-invasion robberies.
The family members — headed by patriarch Gilberto Sr. and joined by sons Derrick, Gilberto Jr., Alexander and Darvis — were charged along with 16 others over the past three years.
Also among those charged: Silva's younger brother, David, who was one of the key members.
All of the defendants have been convicted and are serving long prison sentences, including Derrick Santiesteban, who received a life sentence.
Investigators say the Santiesteban clan operated 20 indoor hydroponic marijuana grow houses, yielding at least 1,146 potent pot plants that produced millions of dollars in profits from a distribution network in the Northeast.
Miami-Dade police and FBI agents took down the outfit in 2012 after they began investigating the gang's murder of a rival doper, Fidel Ruz Moreno.
The group was accused of fatally shooting Ruz in June 2009 after he and others had posed as cops and ripped off about 50 pounds of marijuana from Derrick Santiesteban. He and his wife were packaging the load at their southwest Miami-Dade home to transport to New York.
Silva, the one-time detective, reported the murder to Miami-Dade investigators a full day after Ruz's body was found dead on the street in the Hammocks area — though prosecutors later acknowledged he was not aware of the Santiesteban’s retaliatory plot to kidnap Ruz, which led to his murder.
That issue is expected to come up at Silva’s sentencing on Tuesday, but both sides recently agreed in court papers that the former cop should receive a slight break in his punishment because he was not involved in the family’s plot.
Prosecutors said that after the marijuana robbery at his home, Derrick Santiesteban showed Silva a video-surveillance tape. The police officer proposed that Ruz be arrested. But Santiesteban didn’t like his idea, saying “that he’d pursue it on his own,” according to court records.
This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 1:31 AM with the headline "Former Miami-Dade police detective faces prison for protecting pot ring."