Drug sting nabs HPD officer
Undercover plan targeted thefts in traffic stops
The Houston patrol officer spotted a motorist swerving down the road and quickly pulled the car over. As she asked the driver if he had been drinking, she could see an open duffel bag with 8 kilos of cocaine in clear plastic bags sitting next to him on the car seat.
But instead of confiscating the narcotics, officer Julissa Guzman Diaz allegedly made a secret arrangement with a wrecker driver called to the scene. The two agreed to meet up later and split the cocaine. As Diaz took the motorist to check him in to a city sobering center, the wrecker drove off with the motorist’s car and the cocaine, authorities say.
When she arrived at the center with the detained motorist, the officer was arrested by HPD internal affairs officers and charged with the third-degree felony of tampering and fabricating evidence.
Diaz, 37, had become the unwitting target of an elaborate HPD undercover sting operation, designed to catch an officer suspected of stealing drugs from motorists she encountered, according to details of the case revealed during her court appearance Friday.
Since Police Chief Art Acevedo took over HPD last December, Diaz was the second Houston officer arrested during an undercover investigation conducted by the department. But the investigation that led to Diaz’s arrest was the first to specifically target an HPD officer under Acevedo, who has used both arrests as examples that HPD can be trusted to police its own officers.
“Ms. Diaz’s betrayal of the public trust and oath
of office is inconsistent with the dedication of the men and women of the Houston Police Department and their tireless, honorable service,” Acevedo said in an emailed statement. “While we cannot overstate our depth of disappointment, we take solace in the fact the investigation that led to Ms. Diaz’s arrest was conducted by men and women of the HPD, the same organization and co-workers she betrayed.”
Last month, Acevedo confirmed that an HPD officer was arrested and jailed after he walked into a massage parlor on Westheimer and allegedly paid for sex.
He and more than 100 other men didn’t know it was actually being operated as an undercover sting by Houston vice officers to crack down on clients of the city’s burgeoning sex trade.
On Friday, details of the sting that ensnared Diaz emerged in court.
Relieved from duty
A Harris County prosecutor told a magistrate that Diaz left a duffel bag containing 1 kilo of actual cocaine and 7 kilos of fake cocaine in a car she stopped Wednesday. It was the apparent “bait” that was part of the police undercover sting operation.
Diaz was relieved from duty Thursday and appeared Friday morning in court for the first time since her arrest.
The officer — while on patrol duty in her district — pulled over a driver she saw swerving on Clearwood, near Interstate 45, a prosecutor said in court on Friday.
Diaz had the driver meet her in the parking lot of a nearby HE-B, where she asked the undercover officer if he had consumed any alcohol. As Diaz questioned the driver, the actual and fake cocaine were on the front passenger seat of the undercover car, clearly visible in an open duffel bag, the prosecutor said.
The undercover officer replied he had not consumed any alcohol. He added he wasn’t responsible for anything in his car, including the cocaine. According to the prosecutor, Diaz replied, “Cocaine? Why are you telling me that? I was not going to check your vehicle.”
A video recording inside the undercover vehicle then shows Diaz checking the vehicle for the undercover officer’s phone. She appeared to lean over the open duffel bag with the cocaine inside.
The undercover officer told Diaz multiple times about the cocaine, and she repeatedly responded she did not want to know about it, the prosecutor said.
Diaz then called the wrecker to haul off the undercover car, and HPD investigators believe when the wrecker driver arrived he and Diaz discussed meeting up later. Diaz then took the undercover officer to a sobering center, where she was arrested by other HPD officers involved in the sting operation.
Wrecker driver detained
Joseph Gamaldi, incoming president of the Houston Police Officers Union, echoed on Friday comments made by Acevedo the day Diaz was arrested, saying he was “enraged an officer within our department appears to have disgraced the badge we all hold so dear.”
Diaz was out of jail on $100,000 bail Friday. It was unknown Friday who would be representing her in court.
She has worked for HPD since 2006 and was assigned to the Clear Lake Patrol Division.
Officers also detained the wrecker driver, the prosecutor said.
Police pulled him over for failing to signal when making a right turn. They could smell marijuana coming from inside of the driver’s vehicle, and found both the actual powdered cocaine as well as the fake drugs from the undercover police car, the prosecutor said.
Diaz’s arrest was the latest case to involve an HPD officer and illegal drugs.
Last year, veteran HPD officer Noe Juarez was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after drug authorities recording him selling firearms out of his police cruiser to members of a Mexican drug cartel. He also supplied cartel operatives with sensitive law enforcement information.