FORMER DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT DRUG INFORMANT PLEADS GUILTY TO CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS FOR PLANTING FAKE DRUGS

WASHINGTON, D.C.– The Justice Department announced today that a former paid Dallas Police Department (DPD) drug informant pled guilty to federal civil rights violations related to his role in fabricating and planting counterfeit drugs on numerous innocent victims in the Dallas area.

The defendant, Enrique Martinez Alonso, pled guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, to conspiring with others to violating the civil rights of numerous Dallas residents. Alonso, who was working under the direction of the Dallas Police Department Narcotics Division, admitted to receiving cash payments from the Dallas Police Department in exchange for his cooperation based on the quantity of suspected drugs recovered from each arrest. Additionally, Alonso and his co-defendants conspired to package large quantities of counterfeit drugs, plant the fake drugs near unsuspecting persons and then provide false information to Dallas police officers who subsequently arrested the innocent victims.

The victims were subsequently arrested, charged with various drug offenses, and incarcerated. The planted substances were later determined to be either crushed billiard chalk packaged to resemble powder cocaine or a chemical concoction packaged to resemble methamphetamine. The drug charges against the victims were subsequently dismissed by the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. Many of the unfortunate victims spent months in jail, falsely accused of drug dealing, before it was discovered that the drugs were fake, and the charges against them were dismissed.

"Through these guilty pleas, the defendant has been brought to justice and held accountable for breaching the public trust and preying on numerous innocent citizens," said Ralph F. Boyd Jr., Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. "The Justice Department is committed to vigorously prosecuting those individuals who take advantage of their cooperative relationship with law enforcement to illicitly enrich themselves at the expense of innocent members of our community. Such conduct undermines our nation's criminal justice system."

The defendant, currently being held in federal custody, faces a maximum penalty of ten years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

In announcing the plea, Assistant Attorney General Boyd commended the FBI for spearheading the investigation into allegations of wrongdoing by Dallas Police Department Narcotics Division officers and their informants.

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