Drug sting sends two Dade cop pals to prison. They are big fans of ‘Bad Boys’ movies
In their everyday lives, they served as young Miami-Dade cops who patrolled the streets in their police cruisers.
It would only take a single sting operation produced by undercover drug agents to bring down the buddy cops, who had a thing for the hit police action-movie franchise, “Bad Boys.” The films’ stars are Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
Next week, Roderick Flowers and Keith Edwards will be headed to federal prison for one year and three months. When they get out, both have to serve two years of house arrest and then face probation for another five years. As part of their probation, both were also ordered by U.S. District Judge Paul Huck to serve up to 1,000 hours of community service a year.
It may not seem like a lot of time behind bars for pleading guilty to protecting a cocaine load from one end of the county to the other. But their law-enforcement careers are finished.
“He’s very satisfied with his sentence because it gives him the opportunity to continue with his life,” said Flowers’ defense attorney, David Weinstein.
Both Flowers, 31, and Edwards, 29, avoided potential sentences of three to five years because while they abused the public trust, they accepted responsibility after they got caught. Also, the load of cocaine — which was fake but made to look real in the sting operation — was a relatively small amount, weighing between half a kilo and two kilos. Each police officer was only paid $5,000 for providing protection for the shipment. The single illicit transaction was orchestrated by undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents and their confidential sources.
Last November, both Miami-Dade cops were arrested on charges of agreeing to play escorts in a cocaine-trafficking operation set up by undercover DEA agents. Also charged: a Miami money-laundering suspect named Manuel Carlos Hernandez — who boasted Flowers was on his payroll, according to court documents.
According to a criminal complaint affidavit, the case was made with help from a confidential source posing as a Mexican cartel member who arranged international money-laundering deals with Hernandez and brought in the two cops to help transport a shipment of “white girls” — code for packages of cocaine — from Homestead to Aventura.
“Welcome to the Sinaloa cartel,” the source told the officers, who laughed and drove away after the transport operation on Sept. 16, 2020, according to the affidavit.
Defense attorney Frank Prieto, who represents Edwards, said that while “this crime was created by the feds” in an undercover operation, “there was some damning audiotape that made it clear they were doing something with drugs.”
In April, Flowers and Edwards pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to distribute cocaine in a plea agreement with prosecutor Frederic Shadley. They were sentenced in late August.
Hernandez pleaded guilty to the same drug charge along with a moneylaundering conspiracy count, sending him to prison for nearly four years. His associates, Trevanti McLeod and Durojaiye Obafemi Monsuru Lawal, pleaded guilty to the money-laundering conspiracy charge, resulting in one-year prison terms.
Flowers and Edwards had both been members of Miami-Dade’s “Priority Response Team,” a unit created after the 2018 Parkland school massacre to respond to major incidents.
Flowers hails from a law-enforcement family. His sister is a police officer in Georgia. His father is Raleigh Flowers, the police chief in Bal Harbour and a former high-ranking Hialeah officer.
Edwards is a former Army National Guard member and father of three.
On social media, both former Miami-Dade officers preened with their badges, donned thick gold jewelry and smoked cigars.