Following a five-day jury trial, a jury convicted a Miami-Dade resident of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, promethazine with codeine, and alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax, maintaining a premises for the purpose of distributing marijuana and promethazine with codeine, possession with the intent to distribute alprazolam, and two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Benjamin G. Greenberg, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Mark Selby, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), Troy Walker, Special Agent in Charge, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Miami Regional Operations Center, and Ian A. Moffett, Chief, Miami-Dade Schools Police Department, made the announcement.
Harrison Garcia, 27, faces consecutive statutory mandatory minimum sentences of 5 and 25 years as to the armed narcotics trafficking charges. Sentencing is scheduled for June 3, 2017 before U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz.
According to the court record, including evidence presented during the trial, between February 2013 and Oct. 18, 2016, Garcia - with the assistance of at least two associates - distributed a variety of controlled substances, including marijuana, promethazine with codeine, commonly referred to as “lean" or “drank," alprazolam, lorazepam, and Percocet. To that end, Garcia maintained two Miami residences: at the first, he possessed narcotics, namely marijuana and promethazine with codeine, digital scales, hand-written ledgers, narcotics packaging material, and multiple semi-automatic pistols, including an FN 5.7, which shoots armor-piercing ammunition; at the second, he possessed more than 3,000 alprazolam pills, an UZI submachine gun and AK47 pistol - loaded and readily accessible, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and over one hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry and merchandise with original receipts, all purchased with drug proceeds.
At trial, the evidence showed that Garcia, who went by the alias “muhammad_a_lean" often posed on Instagram with large amounts of “lean" and other drugs, cash, and firearms, and boasted of owning fancy cars, including a Porsche Panamera and a Polaris Slingshot.
Mr. Greenberg commended the investigative efforts of ICE-HSI, FDLE and the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan K. Osborne and Rilwan Adeduntan.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
