CCSO
Alexander Gonzalez Suarez, 38, a Cuban citizen, could face deportation after serving three years in prison for operating a grow house in Golden Gate Estates.
A 38-year-old Cuban citizen was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading no contest Tuesday to operating a grow house in Golden Gate Estates.
Alexander Gonzalez Suarez could face deportation after serving his prison sentence. He also was fined $25,000.
Collier County Sheriff's deputies arrested Suarez in November 2010 when investigators seized 180 pounds of marijuana valued at $282,000 from his rental at 3580 22nd Ave. NE. They also found about $20,000 worth of equipment used for growing marijuana, including three air conditioning units, 42 power transformers and 42 high-intensity light bulbs, an arrest report said.
Investigators said they had been surveilling Suarez's rental home and approached his garage through an open electronic gate in front of the house's driveway. Upon smelling marijuana from outside the closed garage door, deputies obtained a search warrant.
Suarez's lawyer, Donald Day, unsuccessfully argued last week that deputies performed an illegal search and seizure because Suarez regularly closed the electronic gate, giving him an expectation to privacy. Through an interpreter, Suarez testified that he never left the gate open.
Suarez was scheduled for a jury trial this week before Collier Circuit Judge Fred Hardt, who denied Suarez's motion to suppress last week.
Collier County arrests 05-22-2012
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Comments » 7
lionfishhunter writes:
Hopefully Castro will be gone when he gets out and we can ship him back to Cuba.
SWAMPRACER writes:
He will be shipped back at the tax payers expense and the Collier County will not see a penny of that fine money.Bring Arizonas law now.
SandnSurf writes:
I dont think Cubans are deported. If they make it to dry land, they are welcome to stay.
Saltywhenwet writes:
First the Arizona laws are.... we'll just call them extreme. Swampracer- Let the record show your family came from another country at one time. We can even say that they came hear legally, but they came to start a new and better life. The American dream. Same as most of the illegal immigrants of today. Capitalism has made it too costly, both with time and money, for alot of people to immigrate here legelly. On top of that the majority of these illegals are assets to our economy, mostly working in labor jobs that you/we won't do. Unfortunately the bad/criminals get all of the publicity.
As for the fact he was arrested for growing marijuana.... save us all and legalize it. It can banlance the state budget, among many other positive affects.
CaptKidd writes:
Good job CCSO keep it up.
willeys writes:
constituton,didn`t apply to irish,german,women etc. the mayflower refugees, came for 2 rasons alot of the nat. resource were already raped,whale,lumber,oil forlamps not kerosene.Dogs were let in before an irish aswell as german.oreily who says sign the book like his grandaddy;bullshxx most had to sneak in through new orleans,canada;As racist as this country has always been do you actually think they would let in chinese,german or irish.Only when the rr,labor,agri,needed to be done.then the english start timbering,& whaling & sell or trade it back to england.The spaniards were were here almost 100 yr. before the mayflower. the only reason this country came to be what it is Free Labor=slavery, If I invent anything useful & had free labor I`d be rich too.get your facts & shxx together.turn off fox & limbaugh. Your great,great,great grandads wouldn`t be proud of what you turned out to be. "pride goeth before the fall"
Maxone writes:
Saltywhenwet: i do agree with you completely, i am a Cuban too who came to this country pursuing freedom and democracy many years ago, i have got two speeding tickets in these 32 years, these are the closest moments i have been to breaking the law, many of us Cuban are just simply honest working people who pay taxes like everybody else and do our part for the benefit of the community, actually i don`t think that growing or consuming marihuana is a criminal affair, take a look at The Netherlands, they legalize it 30 years ago and they got now the small percentage of users in the whole Europe, well they receive more than a billion dollar in revenues every year from it, actually i do not use it and probably at my 50`s would not begin with it, but in reality i have never seen anybody using it and committing crimes or fighting and killing people like they do when using alcohol, it should be legalize and controlled by the state like they do with tobacco, less criminality and less arrest of people, who btw, are not criminals for smoking a joint from time to time.
For the ones pointing to us immigrants, please remember your origins too, anyone going back two o three generations ends in Europe or elsewhere outside of America, my children are born in here (thanks God for that) and are genuine US citizens like their children are and their children in time will be, one of them serving the country right now in Afghanistan and we are very proud of it.
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