Federal Jury Convicts Dallas Man for Role in Conspiracies to Distribute Cocaine and Methamphetamine
Defendant Also Convicted on Obstruction and Perjury Charges
| U.S. Attorney’s Office December 19, 2013 |
DALLAS—A Dallas man arrested this summer as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) operation was convicted late yesterday, following a three-day trial before U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldana.
The jury found Reynaldo Macedo-Flores, 35, guilty as charged on all five counts of the indictment, including one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of obstruction of justice, and two counts of perjury. The obstruction and perjury convictions stem from Macedo-Flores’s false testimony at the trial of Austreberta Macedo-Flores, his mother, in September 2013, also before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor. (Austreberta Macedo-Flores was also convicted of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine; her sentencing hearing is pending.)
The government presented evidence at trial that Reynald Macedo-Flores repeatedly sold narcotics to an undercover officer, bragged about taking the risk of distributing narcotics on a wiretap, and plotted to present false testimony—and then did so—at his mother’s trial.
Macedo-Flores faces a statutory penalty of five to 40 years in federal prison on the cocaine conviction, 10 years to life in prison on the methamphetamine conviction, up to 20 years in prison on the obstruction conviction, and up to five years in prison on each of the perjury convictions. He could also be ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines. Sentencing is set for March 20, 2014, before Judge O’Connor.
All 10 defendants in the case have now been convicted and are awaiting sentencing. Eight defendants entered guilty pleas.
The case involved undercover purchases, wiretaps, and search warrants, and it was investigated by the FBI in conjunction with the Dallas Police Department. In total, over 15 kilograms of cocaine, four and one-half pounds of methamphetamine (ice), five firearms, four luxury vehicles, and $351,010 in cash—much of it, as trial testimony showed, packaged for shipment to Mexico—have been seized in the operation.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Schall.