A person on parole for posing as a police officer throughout a violent residence invasion is now accused of promoting weapons and medicines to undercover federal brokers at his Portage Park residence.
Juan Rodriguez, of the 5800 block of West Leland Avenue, is charged in federal court docket with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Investigators say Rodriguez bought weapons and portions of cocaine, MDMA, and methamphetamine to an secret agent throughout a sequence of managed buys beginning in August and ending final month.
The federal criticism particulars a number of recorded drug and gun transactions outdoors Rodriguez’s residence.
On August 13, an secret agent met Rodriguez at his residence, the place Rodriguez allegedly bought cocaine and MDMA for $500. Later that night, the agent returned to Rodriguez’s residence to purchase a Glock .40-caliber pistol, together with three magazines and ammunition, for $1,000, the criticism mentioned. The gun’s serial quantity had been partially obliterated.
Rodriguez allegedly continued promoting narcotics over the next weeks. On October 2, he allegedly bought the identical secret agent and a second officer cocaine and 62 pressed methamphetamine drugs for $500. Two weeks later, on October 16, he allegedly bought them a couple of pound of methamphetamine for $1,600. Each transactions occurred outdoors his Portage Park residence.
In response to the submitting, Rodriguez texted the agent on October 26 to supply a Sig Sauer pistol for $1,000. Three days later, Rodriguez acquired into the agent’s automotive outdoors his residence, pulled the Sig Sauer P226 9mm pistol from his waistband, and positioned it within the heart cup holder, the criticism mentioned. The firearm was later decided to be stolen. Throughout the encounter, Rodriguez allegedly displayed a bag of MDMA drugs and mentioned he anticipated one other cargo of methamphetamine on November 1.
The investigation was led by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Illinois Division of Corrections data present that Juan Rodriguez was paroled on February 18 after serving roughly half of a 10½-year sentence he obtained for a violent residence invasion in Belmont Cragin on August 3, 2019.
In response to court docket data, a 55-year-old man and his spouse have been asleep at their Belmont Cragin residence once they heard a knock at their entrance door early that morning. The person regarded outdoors and noticed 4 or 5 males and a lady standing on the porch.
“Police,” one of many strangers shouted. All of them wore bulletproof vests marked “POLICE,” and one man displayed a police star on a sequence round his neck. Somebody on the porch yelled the house owner’s full identify. Believing one thing horrible had occurred, the person opened the door.
The group instantly pressured its approach inside. One of many intruders pointed a gun on the house owner’s chest and pushed him into the eating room, the place he was tied to a chair.
When the person’s 33-year-old spouse got here out of the bed room, she was rapidly restrained by a number of of the offenders whereas others ransacked the house, demanding $1 million or a big stash of cocaine from somebody they thought was there.
However the individual they have been searching for wasn’t residence. The crew as a substitute kidnapped the girl, forcing her into an SUV and driving away. Prosecutors later mentioned the automobile was registered to Ricardo Rodriguez, a person who had lately been exonerated of homicide. The abductors took the girl to 1 home, then moved her to a different location.
The next day, police raided a Portage Park residence allegedly linked to the Rodriguez household. Inside, officers discovered three bulletproof vests labeled “POLICE” in a closet, extra vests in a china cupboard, a police badge hanging from a sequence, and ten firearms that fired solely blanks, prosecutors mentioned. No one among curiosity to the police was there in the course of the search.
That very same day, the abductors launched the girl, leaving her on a road nook in Hermosa.
When officers returned to the Portage Park residence the subsequent day, they discovered the tenants transferring out. Police arrested Juan Rodriguez on the scene. He was on parole on the time.
Whereas he was on digital monitoring awaiting trial in that case, officers executed a search warrant at his Portage Park residence. Inside his bed room, police mentioned they discovered a loaded pistol with a defaced serial quantity and a laser sight; three 31-round ammunition magazines, two different ammunition magazines, gun components, bundles of ammunition, $14,625 price of cocaine, ten kilos of pot price $72,560, ten grams of hash, 21 MDMA drugs, bundles of pretend forex and two accounting ledgers.
He finally obtained a three-year sentence in that matter.
