“Ruddy is at the heart of a costly and aggressive prosecutor-led dragnet that every year pulls hundreds of low-level cocaine traffickers off the oceans and incarcerates them in the U.S.,” said Kendra McSweeney, an Ohio State University geographer who is part of a team studying maritime interdiction policies. Often, the drugs aren’t even bound for American shores and the constitutional guarantees of due process that normally apply in criminal cases inside the U.S. Among his biggest cases were some of the early extraditions from Colombia of top smugglers for the feared Cali cartel.īut the majority of cases handled out of his office involve mostly poor fishermen from Central and South America who make up the drug trade’s lowest rungs. The bulk of those cases were handled by Ruddy and his colleagues in Tampa, where PANEX is headquartered.Ī former Ironman triathlete, Ruddy enjoys a reputation among attorneys for hard work and toughness in the courtroom. Between 20, the Coast Guard removed or destroyed 888 metric tons of cocaine worth an estimated $26 billion and detained 2,776 suspected smugglers, a senior Coast Guard official said in congressional testimony in March. Historically, PANEX-generated intelligence contributes to more than 90% of U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ruddy is known in law enforcement circles as one of the architects of Operation Panama Express, or PANEX - a task force launched in 2000 to target cocaine smuggling at sea, combining resources from the U.S. Neither Ruddy nor his attorney returned messages seeking comment. Despite his own admissions and witness testimony, he was not charged with leaving the scene of an accident. Ruddy, whose blood-alcohol level tested at 0.17%, twice the legal limit, was charged with driving under the influence with property damage - a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. “What could possibly be his purpose in handing over his U.S. “It’s hard to see what this could be other than an attempt to improperly influence the police officer to go easy on him,” Clark said. Such an inspector general’s probe would likely focus on whether Ruddy was trying to use his public office for private gain, said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St.
That footage obtained by The Associated Press showed Ruddy apparently attempting to leverage his position to blunt the fallout from a Fourth of July crash in which he is accused of drunkenly striking another vehicle and leaving the scene.īut despite being charged, the 59-year-old Ruddy remained on the job for two months, representing the United States in court as recently as last week to notch another win for the sprawling task force he helped create two decades ago targeting cocaine smuggling at sea. “You realize when they pull my body-worn camera footage and they see this, this is going to go really bad.” “What are you trying to hand me?” an officer asked.
Justice Department business card in hand. (AP) - When police arrived at his house to investigate a hit-and-run, Joseph Ruddy, one of the nation’s most prolific federal narcotics prosecutors, looked so drunk he could barely stand up straight, leaning on the tailgate of his pickup to keep his balance.īut he apparently was under control enough to be waiting with his U.S. By JOSHUA GOODMAN and JIM MUSTIAN (Associated Press)
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