Cocaine dealer sentenced to 3 years

Help from the ''wannabe godfather'' led to the arrests of other dealers, a prosecutor says.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 9, 2001

LARGO -- Manuel A. Castro acted like a mobster. A guest at his daughter's wedding told police it was like a scene from The Godfather.

Castro, 55, a South Florida man who owned a home in Palm Harbor, had no job and sometimes carried more than $10,000 cash, along with a .45-caliber handgun.

Police say he threatened a man that if he ever snitched, Castro would have him "cut up into several different pieces and thrown into the saltwater."

His own favorite flick: Scarface.

On Monday, a Pinellas-Pasco judge sentenced Castro to three years in prison on drug trafficking and conspiracy charges that could have locked him away for the rest of his life.

Castro, who prosecutors say headed a poorly organized Pinellas-Pasco drug ring, pleaded guilty to the charges last fall in Pinellas criminal court.

Investigative documents show that Castro also appeared to be heavily involved in a local gambling operation, though prosecutors never charged him with that.

Castro's case and several related prosecutions of dealers in his ring have attracted little publicity as statewide prosecutors, wary of spoiling a continuing investigation, have tried to give them as low a profile as possible.

A judge sealed Castro's October plea at prosecutors' request, though his sentencing is public record.

Both Castro's Clearwater attorney, Manuel Penton, and Chief Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Joe Larrinaga, deny that Castro had any real ties to traditional organized crime.

Some of Castro's associates thought he might be connected to the Gambino crime family in New York. Castro didn't say anything to dissuade them.

"He is a wannabe godfather," Larrinaga said in an interview Wednesday. "His allusions to that were really instances of his puffing, his inflating his place in the world."

The reason that Castro didn't get more prison time was that prosecutors and the court agreed to leniency in exchange for his extensive cooperation in a continuing criminal investigation.

"There's no question that he has connections to other drug operations," Larrinaga said.

Castro's help led to the arrests of several individuals connected to drug dealing in other Florida jurisdictions outside Pinellas, Larrinaga said.

He declined to provide names because of the investigation.

Police first focused on Castro because of his alleged gambling activities. They raided his Palm Harbor home in 1997 and found $39,180 in cash. But he wasn't arrested.

When Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents finally pulled Castro out of his 1999 Lexus GS400 and arrested him Oct. 14, 1999, they said Castro told them he wanted to "give up the big man."

He carried more than $12,000 cash and owned with his wife a $205,000 home in Pembroke Pines and a large sports memorabilia collection that Castro once boasted was worth $1-million.

Investigative documents show he would drop $1,000 on a single football wager.

Investigators say that Castro provided local dealers with powder cocaine. One associate of Castro's told investigators that he had connections in Miami who would sell him cocaine for $14,000 a kilogram, about 2.2 pounds.

Records don't detail exactly how much cocaine Castro distributed.

"He was a middleman," said Larrinaga.

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