[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 20-14681 ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus EDWAR RODRIGUEZ, a.k.a. Domi, a.k.a. Brooklyn,

Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 8:20-cr-00030-CEH-TGW-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 20-14681 Date Filed: 05/12/2022 Page: 2 of 28

2 Opinion of the Court 20-14681

Before JILL PRYOR, GRANT, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges. MARCUS, Circuit Judge: Edwar Rodriguez played several distinct roles in a large- scale methamphetamine drug trafficking conspiracy operating out of the Tampa Bay, Florida area. In this appeal, he disputes various building blocks of his 135-month prison sentence imposed by the district court. His primary challenge involves the trial court’s de- termination that he was responsible for distributing 200 kilograms of methamphetamine. He also makes three other arguments on appeal -- concerning his sentencing enhancement for possessing a firearm, the district court’s decision not to grant him a downward variance or downward departure, and the overall reasonableness of his sentence. After thorough review, we affirm the judgment of the district court. I. The essential facts drawn from the Presentence Investiga- tion Report (“PSI”) and an extended sentencing hearing held by the district court are these. From around January 1, 2018 through April 23, 2019, Edwar Rodriguez (“Rodriguez”) participated in a variety of ways in a drug trafficking organization that procured cocaine and hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine from a Mexican drug cartel and distributed these drugs in Spring Hill, Florida. Co- conspirators Juan Carlos Arias Castillo (“Castillo”) and Adan Bara- jas Maldonado (“Maldonado”) led the organization from a stash USCA11 Case: 20-14681 Date Filed: 05/12/2022 Page: 3 of 28

20-14681 Opinion of the Court 3 house in Spring Hill, where authorities later found 13.38 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine, 380.2 grams of powdered metham- phetamine, 145.1 grams of cocaine, one gram of heroin, two pis- tols, and ammunition. Rodriguez principally served as an “errand runner” for the principals of the conspiracy. In this capacity, Rodriguez occasion- ally transported methamphetamine (imported from Mexico) by car from Texas all the way back to the conspirators’ stash house in Florida. Rodriguez also distributed drugs to the organization’s cus- tomers in the Spring Hill area -- a task that included delivering multi-kilogram quantities of methamphetamine to a local metham- phetamine distributor on a weekly basis. Some of the time, Rodri- guez distributed methamphetamine to the organization’s custom- ers by working in tandem with Christian Santiago-Rondon and Vic- tor Santiago-Rondon (collectively, “the Santiago-Rondon broth- ers”), two others who also acted as errand runners for the conspir- acy. On other occasions, Rodriguez served as Castillo’s driver, chauffeuring Castillo as he personally distributed methampheta- mine to customers in the same area. In addition to transporting and distributing drugs, Rodriguez regularly wired funds from Cas- tillo and Maldonado to cartel contacts in Mexico. Occasionally, Rodriguez was tasked with recruiting individuals who were not af- filiated with the conspiracy to send money wires, in an attempt to conceal these transactions from law enforcement. Castillo or Mal- donado typically