MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — An Uber driver reported feeling afraid after a firearm magazine fell out of the pocket of a rider, Lester Leon Sanders, in Miami-Dade County, records show.
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones cited a grand jury indictment alleging Sanders, 47, “arranged a drug deal” and then fired at the Uber driver.
“That kind of alleged conduct turns a drug crime into a life-threatening situation in seconds,” Reding Quiñones said in a statement. “Federal law treats that combination seriously, with a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years if convicted.”
The driver reported Sanders, of Miami Gardens, who was traveling with three suitcases, ordered a sudden stop, got out, and started shouting, records show.
Afraid, the driver reported driving off with Sanders’s belongings and flagging off police officers after Sanders fired a gun about five times, records show.
“This defendant shot repeatedly at an innocent man who stopped a crime as it was happening,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said in a statement on Wednesday.
After the shooting on Oct. 29, 2024, detectives reported finding a loaded, large-capacity firearm magazine, 929 grams of almost pure cocaine, six pounds of marijuana, ammunition, a weight scale, small clear bags, and other drug paraphernalia.
Miami Gardens police officers and FBI Miami special agents worked together on the case.
“It was through the bravery of the Uber driver that police were alerted and able stop the movement of almost a kilogram of pure cocaine from hitting the streets of Miami,” Duva said in the statement.
Sanders appeared in federal court on Friday in Downtown Miami. A grand jury charged him with drug crimes, using and firing a gun as part of the drug crime, and illegal firearm possession by a prior felon relating to his prior felony conviction.
Inmate records show Sanders remained at the Federal Detention Center on Wednesday afternoon in Downtown Miami.
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