Accused drug dealer says Instagram posts were just for street cred
By Joshua Rhett Miller
January 24, 2017 | 11:06am
Harrison GarciaInstagram
The self-proclaimed “CEO of Purple Drank” says pictures he posted of guns and money was all for show.
Harrison Garcia, the accused ringleader in dozens of pharmacy stickups in South Florida, told a federal judge on during a pretrial hearing on Monday that the social media posts were only for the street cred. Garcia, 27, is also known as “Cuban Harry” in the hip-hop industry and has ties to rappers such as Chris Brown, Lil’ Wayne and Future, the Miami Herald reported.
“I had an image to portray, to boost up my followers,” Garcia said. “I guess it’s just the music industry.”
Garcia appeared in court for allegedly using his Instagram account – which remains active (yet private) with 35,800 followers as of Tuesday – to set up drug buys. He told a judge he was just a user of prescription cough syrup mixed with soda – known on the street as “lean,” “purple drank” or “sizzurp” – and not a dealer, despite undercover videos of him selling illegal bottles of promethazine with codeine to federal informants.
“I can’t explain it,” Garcia said. “I was never a drug trafficker.”
Garcia said the drug “helps you focus” and came in handy while in the studio, where he claimed it also improved his voice.
Garcia was charged in December with racketeering, trafficking in illegal drugs and grand theft in connection to dozens of pharmacy burglaries from Plantation to Homestead. He was already facing charges for using his Instagram account to arrange buys of the drink with users and the federal informants, the Miami Herald reports.
Garcia’s flashy Instagram profile – peppered with big bundles of cash, expensive cars and diamond-encrusted grills – led U.S. Homeland Security investigators to him, and some of the images were used as evidence during Monday’s hearing.
Ted Mastos, Garcia’s attorney, insisted his client was merely a “young, foolish man who got caught up in the rap world, drugs, the glamour,” according to the Herald.
“This is all begins stupidly by him putting this stuff out on Instagram,” Mastos said.
Prescription cough syrup mixed with soda was popularized in part by rapper Pimp C, who died in 2008 as a result of an accidental overdose that was triggered by codeine combined with a pre-existing sleep condition. The rapper boasted of his love for codeine on the song “Sippin’ on Some Syrup,” MTV reported.
Rapper Lil’ Wayne also drank an “extraordinary amount of lean” before having multiple seizures aboard a private jet in June, TMZ reported.
Garcia’s trial is set to begin on Feb. 6. A judge will decide whether jurors can hear evidence of his cooperation with investigators, leading authorities to an apartment and a storage unit that contained drugs, cash and gun, the Miami Herald reports.
Meanwhile, while admitting to using the drug, drinking a bottle in “like two days,” Garcia said the photos of large stacks of money on his Instagram account weren’t connected to slinging the syrup.
“I would withdraw cash just to flex it,” Garcia said. “It was stupid on my behalf.”
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