Ex-Coral Gables cop who testified in DEA corruption case sentenced to prison

Edwin Pagan III, a former Coral Gables police officer, was sentenced to 10 months on Thursday in the corruption case of two Drug Enforcement Administration agents convicted of a bribery scheme at a previous trial where Pagan testified in their defense.

Rather than face trial on his own, Pagan pleaded guilty in October to a minor felony of failing to report the bribery conspiracy to federal investigators when he learned the DEA agents — one active, the other retired — were indicted in 2022. Instead, he testified for them at their trial in New York City the following year and was accused of hiding their crime.

Under his plea agreement, Pagan faced a potential prison term of 10 to 16 months according to federal sentencing guidelines. However, the outcome in Manhattan federal court turned out far better than the risk of going to trial himself on the more serious charges of conspiracy, bribery, fraud and perjury, which carried harsher punishment.

Pagan, 53, must surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on March 30. He may be incarcerated at a federal facility in South Miami-Dade, his lawyer said.

“There’s a lot of talk these days about tariffs. What happened here felt like one,” defense attorney Chris DeCoste told the Miami Herald on Friday. “Eddie crossed a border by testifying against the government in defense of fellow law enforcement officers —federal agents, one retired.

“He knowingly went into harm’s way to protect them from what he believed was wrong,” he said. “That instinct — to step in, even at personal risk — is the same instinct he followed for decades as a decorated police officer protecting this community. Defendants convicted after trial often get hit with a trial tax. Eddie got hit with a trial tariff for testifying.”

In late 2023, a Manhattan federal jury reached unanimous guilty verdicts on bribery-related corruption charges for Manuel Recio, who retired from the DEA in 2018 after working as an assistant special agent in charge of the Miami office, and John Costanzo Jr., who had worked as a supervisor in the Miami office as well as in DEA headquarters in the Washington area.

Recio, 57, was sentenced to three years in prison and Costanzo Jr., 51, to four years in the $100,000 bribery scheme that played out in South Florida and New York between October 2018 and January 2020.

Started with Gables police in 1997

Pagan began his law-enforcement career with the Coral Gables Police Department in 1997 and worked as an officer and detective. While with Gables police, he also spent a decade as a deputized agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 2024, he was charged with playing a supporting role in the conspiracy to bribe Costanzo, the DEA supervisor in Miami, with tens of thousands of dollars for access to confidential information about drug-trafficking suspects. The secret intelligence was then passed on to Recio, the retired DEA agent, so he could share it with a Coral Gables defense attorney who worked with the retired agent to recruit and represent new clients, according to the original indictment.

Pagan was placed on suspension without pay by Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak. During his suspension last year, the Coral Gables police union paid Pagan $1,500 a month. He now faces termination.

Bag man, indictment says

In the indictment, Pagan was portrayed as a bag man and a buffer between Costanzo and Recio. Pagan was close to Costanzo because they had attended a police academy together in the mid-1990s.

Then, in February of last year, Coral Gables criminal defense attorney David Macey was indicted along with Pagan on charges of bribing Costanzo to obtain confidential information about drug-trafficking suspects to recruit them as potential clients for his law firm.

In a surprising turn of events in August, federal prosecutors agreed to drop charges against Macey, 54, without explaining why. Prosecutors said the criminal charges against Macey would be dismissed in a year as long as he does not break any laws, according to a deferred prosecution agreement announced in court. The agreement was not filed in the court record.

Macey was charged with a conspiracy to bribe Costanzo. Macey was accused of using Recio and Pagan as intermediaries in the alleged corruption scheme to provide confidential information and defendants to the Coral Gables lawyer, according to the indictment. After his retirement from the DEA, Recio worked as a private investigator for Macey and other South Florida defense attorneys.

This story was originally published January 30, 2026 at 5:59 PM.