News Release
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Rhode Island
October 18, 2007
Guilty plea in drug-trafficking charges
Manuel Coradin, 28, of Providence, has pleaded guilty to federal drug-trafficking charges. Providence Police officers seized about 200 grams of crack cocaine, some powder cocaine, and $25,000 in cash from Coradin’s apartment on Marshall Street in July 2005.
United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente announced the guilty plea, which Coradin entered yesterday before Senior U.S. District Court Judge Ernest C. Torres in U.S. District Court, Providence.
At the plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen G. Dambruch said the government could prove that, on July 8, 2005, Providence Police officers conducting a drug-trafficking investigation stopped a Ford Expedition that Coradin was driving. Coradin told officers there were no drugs in the vehicle, and then gave consent for them to search his apartment on Marshall Street.
From the kitchen of the apartment, police seized a cooking pan that had trace amounts of cocaine base. They seized two bags of cocaine and $25,262 from a safe, and in a bedroom, three more bags of cocaine. The net weight of the seized cocaine was 261 grams, of which 211 grams was in the form of crack cocaine and about 50 grams in powder form.
Coradin pleaded guilty to possessing with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base (crack) and possessing with intent to distribute cocaine. He is detained
pending sentencing, which is scheduled for January 15. He faces a minimum of ten years in prison and a maximum of life plus a $4,000,000 fine.