RODRIGUEZ NEVER STOPPED TRYING TO PROVE HER INNOCENCE AFTER SHE WAS SENT TO PRISON
Tim Schoepp was the only spectator in the Edmonton courtroom on the first day of Sindy Rodriguez’s trial in the spring of 2012. He had always been interested in the legal process and finally had time to see it in action. The 23-year-old accused was a complete stranger to Schoepp, a retired electrician.
Schoepp chose to attend this trial because he knew an RCMP officer who played a small role in the case. Initially, he didn’t plan to watch the entire trial, but after sitting through that first day he couldn’t stay away.
“It was pretty interesting. I kept coming (back),” he says now, five years later. “After three, four days, I’m not going to miss a second. I was so convinced she was not guilty.”
Over the course of the trial’s five days, Schoepp watched with fascination as a lengthy video interrogation was shown, brown paper wrapping was held up as evidence, Facebook messages were read aloud, and the accused took the stand.
Schoepp learned how Rodriguez’s life had been turned upside down after she agreed to do a favour for an acquaintance she hadn’t spoken to in four years.
She was expecting a parcel of personal belongings from a Colombian man named William Murillo, court heard, but instead the then 20-year-old Fort McMurray resident was delivered a package that contained 12 kilograms of cocaine.
A label on the parcel identified the sender as Jorge De Leon at a Panamanian address. Rodriguez accepted the parcel on Nov. 25, 2009, and opened the box in front of her sister and young niece.
The courtroom heard that an investigation by authorities in Panama had led to the seizure of 48 kilograms of cocaine hidden in candles and the arrest of De Leon and an unidentified Colombian citizen.
Panama police discovered drugs were being shipped from De Leon’s home to Spain, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and Shanghai. China.
Two pieces of paper were found in De Leon’s Panama apartment that had Rodriguez’s name and address and were machine datestamped Aug. 31, 2009, and Nov. 9, 2009.
After nearly three years on bail under several conditions, including a strict curfew, Rodriguez went into the trial, being heard by judge alone, confident she would finally get her life back. She pleaded not guilty to the drug charges.
The Crown theorized that Rodriguez was a knowing participant in a scheme to import cocaine from Colombia via Panama through the mail system. Her defence lawyer argued she was not aware of the wholesale commercial drug-dealing operation. From the time of her arrest to the trial, where she took the stand, Rodriguez maintained she was innocent.
“She’s just a naive girl,” Schoepp thought as the trial proceeded.
He believed anyone sitting in the courtroom could see that.
But on June 13, 2012, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Donna Shelley concluded she was satisfied
beyond a reasonable doubt that Rodriguez “knew she was receiving a package that contained cocaine.” The judge said Rodriguez’s actions and testimony “raise serious concerns about her credibility. In addition to being contradictory, much of her evidence simply does not make sense.”
The judge found Rodriguez guilty of importing cocaine, possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and possession of marijuana.
“I’m innocent. I’m telling the truth. I didn’t know anything about this,” a distraught Rodriguez said after the verdict was read.
“Tell me to relax — I’ve been on this for three years. I don’t deserve to be here. I’m telling the truth,” Rodriguez continued, according to the trial transcript.
A few weeks later, at a tearful hearing on July 4, 2012, Rodriguez was crushed to learn her punishment.
“Taking into account the very large quantity of drugs involved, which I agree is a very important factor, as well as providing some very minor credit for bail conditions and for your minimal cooperation with the authorities, I conclude that an appropriate sen- tence on the importation charge is 9½ years,” the judge said.
Rodriguez cried as the sentence was read aloud, stealing glances at her devastated mom and sister in the gallery.
The nearly decade-long term was reduced 76 days for pre-trial custody.
Schoepp was also there.
“I was horrified again to find out she gets nine years. I just couldn’t believe it,” Schoepp says. “I thought, I have to go visit that poor girl.”
As Rodriguez was led away to begin serving her sentence at the Edmonton Institution for Women, her sister Maryuri put on a brave face, told her little sister she loved her and asked her not to cry.
In shock at what had become of her life, Rodriguez went to prison knowing she had one last chance for this mess to finally end — a successful appeal.
“The minute I got (to prison) every person in there was like, ‘Get used to it. You’re not going anywhere. Oh yeah, that’s what they all say: not guilty,’” says Rodriguez, sitting in her Calgary home and recalling the day five years earlier she was sentenced.
“I wasn’t willing to give up. I still had hopes.”
Rodriguez tried desperately to look on the bright side. She found strength in comparing her situation with that of fellow inmates, while dreaming of a successful appeal.
“It’s a sad place, right? Because some of the girls in there, they are lost beyond repair,” Rodriguez says. “I knew when I was in there, I was going to get out. I (recognized) there’s no way I’m ever going to have this time to myself to … gain knowledge and just, you know, work with it. I made the best of it even though it was hard.”
In weekly meetings, prison chaplain Ramon (Snowy) Noble worked to keep Rodriguez hopeful, encouraging the young woman to focus on an appeal and the support that surrounded her, rather than the lengthy sentence.
“I reminded her, as much as you feel you’re in this dark place isolated from your family, your family is still going to go to bat for you,” Noble recalls.