Roach gets 5
years
Prison term
awaits former DA
U.S. District
Judge Mary Lou Robinson,
citing a betrayal of the
public trust and a pattern
of criminal conduct she
deemed "way out of bounds
and at times seriously
unscrupulous," sentenced
former 31st District
Attorney Rick Roach on
Wednesday to five years in
prison on a drug-related
firearms charge.
In setting Roach's
sentence, Robinson said
Roach violated the laws he
swore to uphold and doled
out a prison term that
significantly exceeded a
pre-trial officer's
recommended sentence of
between 37 to 46 months. She
ordered his immediate
imprisonment.
This year, Roach, 55,
pleaded guilty in a plea
bargain to a charge of
possessing firearms while
using or being addicted to
narcotics. He faced a
possible 10-year prison
term.
"The guidelines do not
adequately address ... the
extent to which you have
betrayed the public trust,"
Robinson told Roach.
Federal prosecutor
Christy Drake argued for
Robinson to issue a stiff
sentence against Roach, who
once ran on a
get-tough-on-drugs platform.
She presented testimony that
Roach was addicted to drugs,
illegally possessed firearms
and attempted to bribe
Department of Public Safety
troopers with cash seized
from highway drug busts.
But Roach's attorney,
Bill Kelly, asked Robinson
to grant Roach probation and
attempted to refute many of
the allegations leveled
against his client.
Kelly acknowledged that
cocaine and methamphetamine
were found during an FBI
search of Roach's office in
January but said the drugs
did not belong to Roach.
"We specifically deny
that he was engaged in any
unethical conduct during his
tenure," Kelly told the
judge.
The government dismissed
the remaining federal
charges against Roach,
including possession of
methamphetamine, possession
of methamphetamine with
intent to distribute and
possession of cocaine with
intent to distribute.
As federal marshals led
Roach away, he indicated he
didn't wish to comment on
Robinson's decision and
waved goodbye to family
members, including his twin
sons.
As he awaited Robinson's
decision, Roach apologized
for his crime and for its
heavy toll on his family,
employees and friends. But
Roach also characterized
himself as a good employee
and asked for a chance to
make amends and spend time
with his sons.
"I recognize that I have
used very poor judgment in
everything that I have
done," he told the judge.
"I'm very, very sorry."
During testimony
Wednesday, Drake presented
evidence that Roach was an
intravenous methamphetamine
user who had 35 firearms in
his office, home and a Pampa
apartment maintained by the
district attorney's office.
The prosecution also
presented testimony that
Roach had surfed child
pornography sites and was
obsessed with obtaining
money from drug seizures.
DPS trooper Jason
Henderson said Roach
followed him and another DPS
trooper into the elevator
one day in 2002 and offered
them jobs, positions that
would be paid for with cash
seized in Interstate 40
drug-traffic stops. Roach,
Henderson said, asked them
whether they would be
willing to work off-duty in
state vehicles and focus on
seizing cash from westbound
drug traffickers.
"We advised him that we'd
get fired. We weren't
interested," Henderson
testified. "Everything he
asked us that day, we
informed him was illegal."
Kelly asked Henderson
whether he was aware that
prosecutors sometimes pay
employee salaries with
drug-seizure funds and asked
Henderson when he reported
the meeting with Roach to
DPS supervisors.
Henderson acknowledged
that DPS agreed to split
drug seizure funds with
Roach's office and said he
reported the meeting to DPS
supervisors about a year
later. But he said the
proposal Roach outlined to
him was illegal.
"The drug problem wasn't
brought up," Henderson said.
"He offered that there were
ways to do it that nobody
would know."
FBI Special Agent John
Whitworth testified that
Roach had two firearms in
his briefcase when he was
arrested at the Gray County
Courthouse in January.
The agent said a secretly
recorded videotape shows
Roach injecting himself with
methamphetamine in an
apartment while a co-worker
watched.
"He used the word: meth,"
Whitworth said.
Employees also once
discovered a
methamphetamine-tainted
syringe floating in a toilet
in Roach's office.
Roach, Whitworth said,
had an affair with an office
employee and supplemented
her salary with drug-seizure
funds that the co-worker
used for day-care expenses
and to pay her attorney in a
child-custody dispute.
The former district
attorney, Whitworth said,
often dismissed money
laundering charges against
drug defendants arrested
with large sums of cash if
they agreed not to fight the
prosecution's efforts to
keep the money.
"That money would
sometimes be returned to the
defendant," Whitworth said.
In one instance, Roach's
office seized $400,000 in a
drug case and returned
$80,000 to the defendant's
attorney, Whitworth said,
and Roach filed court
documents stating that some
funds returned to the
defendant were not
considered illegal
contraband.
Roach also filed court
documents seeking 1.2
kilograms of ecstasy pills,
2.9 kilograms of cocaine and
more than 800 grams of
methamphetamine to use in
training of drug dogs, a
request Whitworth said
raised the suspicions of DPS
officials.
The methamphetamine, he
said, was given to canine
trainers, but investigators
could not determine whether
any drugs were missing.
But Kelly quizzed
Whitworth about the FBI's
investigation and asserted
that Roach's possession of
various seized firearms was
not illegal.
"It is if he is addicted
to drugs," Whitworth said.
Roach, who soon will be
taken to an undisclosed
federal prison, was indicted
last month on two state
counts of possession and
intent to deliver cocaine
and methamphetamine. He
could face 10 to 99 years on
each count. Whitworth said
the Texas Rangers are
continuing their
investigation into Roach's
office.
