A Wyoming man extradited from Mexico when it was discovered he was wanted on suspicion of trafficking meth and fentanyl has reached a plea agreement, his court file says.
Gabriel Seth Rodgers, 25, faces one count of conspiring to distribute meth and fentanyl, and three more of dealing fentanyl, says an indictment filed last Wednesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Z. Seth Griswold filed a notice that same day, saying he’ll seek enhanced penalties if Rodgers is convicted, since Rodgers was convicted federally for prior drug offenses.
The federal law Griswold cited says a person who commits a drug offense before serving out penalties for a prior felony drug conviction may face up to 30 extra years in prison.
Rodgers already was facing between 60 years and life in prison under the indictment.
It is unclear if Rodgers’ plea agreement, also filed Wednesday, limits these potential penalties or proposes the dropping of charges or enhancements.
That’s because the federal government generally does not file plea agreements publicly in Wyoming.
He’s scheduled to plead guilty July 15, in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming, in Cheyenne, his court file says.
Mexican authorities announced in late March they were removing from the country a convicted LSD and marijuana dealer from Wyoming who had been hiding out in the town of Culiacán.
Rodgers was hiding in the Mexican town after evading his United States-imposed supervised release, says the English translation of a Mexican periodical story dated March 27.
Law enforcement agents closed in on the subdivision where the man was sheltered and carried out operations to find, identify, approach and arrest him, Mexican federal authorities told the “El Diario” news outlet.
Rodgers, also known as “Gabriel N,” was “placed at the disposal of authorities of the National Institute of Migration for deportation,” the story says.
Started In Gillette
Rodgers showed recent addresses in Sundance, Wyoming, and in Rapid City, South Dakota, before his 2018 arrest relating to a pawn shop heist of 32 firearms from 4T Pawn in Gillette.
The Gillette Police Department responded to the burglary June 30, 2018.
GPD and other agencies compiled evidence linking Rodgers to the multi-person heist. One of the burglars told police that Rodgers had a good connection with someone in Denver, Colorado, who would buy the stolen guns, says an evidentiary affidavit filed in the case.
Rodgers had sold about eight or nine guns for the burglar before, the latter said.
One “source of information” told investigators that Rodgers had sold numerous firearms to his cocaine source, whom the source described as “an overweight Hispanic Juvenile that may be 16 years old” named Xavier.
Xavier had announced that he’d murder people for $1,500, the affidavit relates from the source interview.
Rodgers was convicted in April 2019 for possessing stolen firearms and conspiring to distribute LSD and marijuana, says his federal court file.
Vanished In 2022
He was originally sentenced to 44 months in federal prison.
Later, when he broke a condition of his supervised release, he was sent back to jail for four months in August 2022, then obligated to a new three-year term of supervised release, the file says.
Rodgers “broke that benefit, evaded U.S. justice and moved to Culiacan to hide,” wrote El Diario.
He didn’t report with the probation officer after his Dec. 4, 2022, release from the Scottsbluff County Detention Center, says a warrant affidavit in his court file.
“Attempts to locate the defendant have been made to no avail, and his current whereabouts are unknown,” the warrant affidavit adds.
The United States issued a warrant for Rodgers’ arrest on Dec. 8, 2022.
More About That
United States federal authorities brought him to Utah, then to Wyoming.
An evidentiary affidavit filed in Rodgers’ new case on May 20 expounds more details about his alleged career as a drug cartel operative.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) started investigating a drug trafficking organization operating between California, Arizona and Wyoming, in October of 2022, the affidavit says.
A confidential source identified Rodgers as a “load coordinator” for the Sinaloa Cartel, and said Rodgers was living in the St. Louis, Missouri, Area coordinating drug shipments from California to Wyoming and Montana, says the document.
Rodgers used a point of contact named Donna Singleton, who lived near Beulah, Wyoming, and she moved drugs at his direction, the source told law enforcement.
The source said he or she watched Singleton move a large amount of meth and marijuana to Rodgers at a hotel in Casper, Wyoming, according to the document.
Singleton, 60, was sentenced to four years in prison last February.
A special agent reviewed text messages in which Rodgers was alleging directing payment methods for fentanyl pills.
Law enforcement used a confidential source to buy fentanyl pills from one of Rodgers’ suspected contacts, and that man was arrested Feb. 27, 2023.
When reviewing the man’s devices, the affidavit says, agents found multiple text messages in which Castillo and others appeared to arrange for drug purchases – and the man instructed one person to send drugs to a Hulett, Wyoming, address.
These text messages also indicated Rodgers was involved in the drug commerce, the document says.
Check The Mail
By March 6, 2023, authorities had intercepted a mail parcel containing 1,000 fentanyl pills marked as Oxycodone, says the document. That parcel was headed for the Hulett address, reportedly.
A mail inspector took the parcel to the address, put it on the mailbox, and left the area, says the affidavit.
A blue Chevy Cruz with a Wyoming license plate – registered out of Fremont County – approached the mailbox. Approached by agents, the driver said he was getting mail for his mother, Donna Singleton, who no longer lived at the address, says the document.
Agents interviewed a source that afternoon, and the source said Rodgers was having parcels sent to the home. A review of Singleton’s phone confirmed Rodgers was coordinating a delivery with her, under the pseudonym “Nick Johnson,” the affidavit alleges.
The document lists more alleged drug arrangements and the exchange of thousands of fentanyl pills, and multiple pounds of meth, ranging across multiple states.
During the week of Sept. 1, 2023, agents helped a source arrange the purchase of 9,000 fentanyl pills from Rodgers. Rodgers wrote to the source days later and said the parcel had been shipped, the affidavit alleges.
Rodgers arranged the delivery of about $67,000 cash with an undercover DEA agent that October, says the document. When agents delivered the cash as directed to a Hispanic male in Compton, California, the male gave an agent nearly 1,000 grams of cocaine and more than 1,000 grams of fentanyl pills, the affidavit says.
Riverton’s Got This One
The document details weeks of drug exchanges and attempted exchanges.
“During the week of February 12, 2024,” says the affidavit, “agents received information that (Rodgers’ accomplice Preston Castor) was traveling to Los Angeles, California, to obtain narcotics for redistribution in Wyoming and Montana.”
The Riverton Police Department intercepted Castor three days later and arrested him for an outstanding warrant, the document says. A later search of his vehicle revealed about 46 pounds of a substance that tested presumptive positive for meth, and about 7.4 pounds of a substance that tested positive for cocaine, the document says.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
