Talk Bronx New York

Jose Rodriguez is new district manager for Community Board 4.

Spotlight on Bronx People: Jose Rodriguez

Jose Rodriguez prefers to turn his back on the South Bronx’s past and look forward as new district manager of Community Board 4 in Highbridge, just as he has with his own life.

A high-school dropout, he left home as a teenager and struggled to support himself, going on welfare at one point.

Within a few years, with the influence of the Love Gospel Assembly Church on the Grand Concourse, he got back on track, earning his GED, a bachelor’s degree at Touro College and a master’s degree at John Jay at night.

During the day, he worked for the Attorney General’s consumer fraud unit, thanks to a lucky break from an aunt who worked there as a secretary.

Proving his drive and work ethic at several other jobs, he most recently worked for Rep. Jose Serrano as director of community outreach, before becoming district manager last month.

Rodriguez describes Board 4 as having gone through a renaissance, much like his own. He dubs the board’s area the “civic hub” and cultural center of the borough.

“Although things might not be doing well in our nation’s economy, I think people here would tell us they are better off now than 20, 30 years ago,” he said. “Board 4 specifically has seen a real turnaround, an economic turnaround, a commercial turnaround.”

Rodriguez says his No. 1 goal is to engage and listen to the community and create a transparent process.

The board has struggled over the past several years, as members who voted against the new Yankee Stadium plan were systematically eliminated by Borough President Adolfo Carrión.

Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

Bronx Kingpin Jose Rodriguez Busted 

Jose Rodriguez Nieves, a/k/a “Menor,” a/k/a “Cuba,” was found guilty late Friday of charges related to his leadership of a highly lucrative drug organization responsible for distributing hundreds of kilograms of heroin in the Bronx from 1995 to January 2006.

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge John Gilbride told reporters, “Throughout this operation the DEA and our law enforcement partners identified an organization responsible for importing, packaging and distributing thousands of bags of heroin to be distributed in New York. All those responsible have been placed under arrest and last week the leader of the drug organization had been convicted by members of the same community he was poisoning with heroin.”

According to the evidence at trial: Rodriguez was the principal organizer, leader, and administrator of a drug organization that obtained hundreds of kilograms of heroin from Colombian suppliers in Queens, New York, and then prepared the heroin for distribution in the Bronx. During the ten-year period, Rodrriguez employed over a dozen people to work in heroin “mills” where bags of heroin were prepared, packaged, and delivered to heroin distribution “spots” in the Bronx.

In preparing the heroin, the suspect and his workers mixed the heroin with chemicals including animal tranquilizers to create a potent and addictive drug that became popular with drug addicts and other users in the Bronx. Rodriguez and other members of the drug organization used a number of vehicles with hidden compartments or “traps” to transport the kilograms of heroin within the New York City area.

Specifically, Rodriguez’s heroin was sold in the vicinity of Bryant Avenue in Bronx, New York — where his mother used to own a townhouse in which agents seized ammunition and evidence relating to his heroin organization — and in the vicinity of Vyse Avenue, also in the Bronx.

In the ten years that his organization was in operation, it earned millions of dollars from heroin sales. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement agents and officers seized over $2.7 million in cash, 108 pieces of jewelry worth more than $160,000, and several expensive and antique vehicles.

Rodriguez was convicted of leading and organizing a continuing criminal enterprise (”CCE”), conspiring to distribute heroin, and possessing heroin with the intent to distribute it. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment on the CCE count, and mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years and maximum sentences of life on the heroin conspiracy and distribution counts. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge PRESKA on May 7, 2008.

Other individuals who participated in Rodriguez’s heroin organization were arrested and have subsequently pleaded guilty to heroin trafficking and/or firearms offenses.

Many law enforcement commanders have praised the investigative efforts of the DEA’s New York Drug Enforcement Task Force — which includes agents and officers of the DEA, New York City Police Department, and New York State Police — for their assistance in the investigation, arrest and prosecution of Rodriguez and many members of his organization.

SOURCE: CommonVoice.com

Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post