Ortiz says his arrest resulted from a sting operation during which an acquaintance, Orlando Adams, agreed to sell heroin to a confidential informant. Through a series of tape-recorded conversations between Adams and the confidential informant, police officers in Hillsborough County, Florida, had learned of an impending drug deal and pulled over Adams’s vehicle in October 2001. According to Ortiz, when the car was pulled over, he and Jorge Mictil, who had been living with Ortiz at the time, were riding in the backseat, while a woman named Eileen sat in the front passenger seat next to Adams. Ortiz was in possession of a gun at the time. While searching the car, officers found two bags of heroin on the rear floorboard, near Ortiz. Ortiz claimed that the drugs were not his and had been thrown in the backseat by Eileen when police stopped the car. Officers subsequently searched Ortiz’s residence and discovered 67 grams of heroin and drug paraphernalia.

Ortiz was charged with trafficking between 14 and 28 grams of heroin, conspiracy to traffic drugs, and trafficking between 286 grams and 30 kilograms of heroin. Ortiz and Adams proceeded to trial; Mictil pleaded guilty and testified against them. According to Ortiz, his attorney called only one witness during his trial. Through cross-examination of the confidential informant, his attorney did demonstrate that the informant had never met Ortiz, Ortiz was never heard on the taped conversations discussing the drug deal, and he was not present when the heroin was initially purchased.

In September 2002, when he was 31, Ortiz was convicted on all counts and sentenced to mandatory LWOP for heroin trafficking under § 893.135 of the Florida Penal Code, which requires a life-without-parole sentence for certain first-time drug offenses. He received a mandatory minimum 30-year sentence for the other charges.

Ortiz, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, had only a fourth-grade education and barely spoke English at the time of his arrest. He spoke through an interpreter during his trial and says he was confused about many aspects of his case. “I wasn’t informed, or, better said, I didn’t understand,” he recalls. Prior to his incarceration, the father of four worked as a cabinet maker, truck driver, and transport mechanic for a school bus company. He told the ACLU, “Before I came to prison, my only intention was to be a good citizen and have a better life progressively…All I’ve ever wanted to be, above all else, was to be a good father to my children.”

Now 42, Ortiz has been incarcerated for more than a decade. He said that excessive sentences like his “cause not only a distortion of one’s perception of the higher governmental powers that be, but also tear down completely one’s life aspirations of an onward successful life in all areas.” Once, Ortiz says, he served 30 days in solitary confinement for greeting someone else’s family member during visitation.

A corrections officer who worked at the prison where Ortiz is incarcerated told the ACLU, “When he told me his story and that he was in prison for life, I could not believe it. There [were] inmates that were in for rape or killing someone that were getting out in 15 to 25 years. I had one inmate that was drunk and ran a stop light hitting a van and killing six people, including children, and only got 30 years, and he will be out in six years due to earning gain time. I kept thinking [that] something is wrong with this picture.”

“It’s a very sad thing,” Ortiz said, “to be taken out of your family and be charged with such a massive charge that I got.” He says that it has been especially difficult to be separated from his three sons and one daughter, who were only two, four, six, and seven years old when he was incarcerated and “have a great need and desire to see [their father] again in the free world.” Ortiz says he also longs to see his ailing mother, who lives in Puerto Rico and used to travel to Florida for a month every other year to visit him in prison. Ortiz has not seen her in many years and says he misses the days he spent in Puerto Rico helping with her community service work. He told the ACLU, “The only thing I ask God for is to give me the liberty to be out of prison that I may have my mother in my arms again with what years she has left.” He says he hopes to be released from prison so that he can spend time with his family and get back to work. While in prison, he has taken a number of wellness courses, and works from 4:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the prison laundromat.

Click here to view original ACLU article (Page 59).