Former Walla Walla guard going to prison in 2nd WA officer sentencing set this month
A woman sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy to sell drugs was arrested at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, where she worked as a corrections officer.
Large quantities of fentanyl-laced pills and other drugs were found at her home.
It was the second sentencing scheduled this month on a felony charge against a state prison guard in Eastern Washington.
Leticia Rodriguez, 44, was a corrections officer at the same time she was a driver for a large drug trafficking operation selling in Eastern Washington that used the Affordable Landscaping business in Kennewick as a front, according to U.S. court documents.
“Ms. Rodriguez violated the trust of the public she had been sworn to serve,” said U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref, of the Eastern Washington District U.S. Attorney’s Office, in a statement on Monday. “Her criminal conduct undermines the respect many of our law enforcement officials earn on a day-to-day basis.”
The public must remain confident that no one is above the law, she said.
On Oct. 19 a Pasco man, Randy Joe Harris, who had been a corrections officer at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell for 24 years apparently shot himself and died just before he was scheduled to be sentenced at the Richland U.S. Courthouse for possessing child pornography.
Fentanyl sales ring
Rodriguez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, 400 grams or more of fentanyl and five kilograms or more of cocaine.
She and other drivers would take cash to Arizona and California and then drive back with large quantities of cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine, according to court documents.
Another defendant in the case said that Rodriguez and another woman traveled to Tucson, Ariz., in July 2021 and brought back 30 pounds of meth to Kennewick.
Rodriguez admitted after her arrest in March 2022 that she had made two trips to Arizona and a trip to California, each time with a second person, and was paid around $2,000 per trip, according to a court document.
She said that she stopped driving after the three trips, suspecting that drugs might be involved.
A search of her house found a bag with 11 pounds of meth, 8,000 fentanyl-laced pills, a half pound of cocaine and a digital scale that she reportedly was holding for another defendant in the case.
She said that co-defendant Joel Chavez-Duran had given her a bag to hold containing 30 pounds of meth, 10,000 pills and and unknown amount of cocaine about two weeks before he was arrested, according to a court document.
She has not worked for the Washington Department of Corrections since the week of her arrest, after being employed at the Walla Walla prison for about a year.
She was the second of 10 defendants to be sentenced in the landscaping business case.
Jose Mendoza-Ruelas, 38, was sentenced to over 12 years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute substantial quantities of methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine.
A search of several houses and the landscaping business on the 3800 block of West Kennewick Avenue found loaded assault rifles hanging on the wall; more than $165,000, much of it hidden within a wall; a digital money counter; a 45-caliber pistol and materials often used for street level drug packaging.
Rodriguez did not live there. Mendoza-Ruelas also was not among the members of the drug trafficking organization that lived at the Kennewick compound, but told a law enforcement source that he could sell him up 60,000 fentanyl-laced pills in addition to large quantities of meth, according to court documents.
U.S. Judge Mary Dimke sentenced Rodriguez to five years of probation in addition to her prison term.
Child pornography case
Harris, 55, pleaded guilty in June to possessing child pornography.
He admitted to grooming a 15-year-old girl in Illinois, who he successfully pressured to send him an explicit photo of herself, according to a court document.
When he failed to show up at his sentencing Thursday afternoon, the court learned that he was dead of a gunshot wound at his Pasco home.
Benton County Coroner Curtis McGary said Thursday that the death was being investigated as a suicide.
The Eastern Washington District U.S. Attorney’s Office had asked the court to sentence Harris to 10 years in federal prison. Harris’ attorney had requested a four-year prison sentence.
