Noe Juarez, a 20-year veteran of Houston's police force and named one of the Houston Police Officers' Union's "Officers of the Year" in 2009, was charged with drug and weapon trafficking based on damning evidence in two videos secretly recorded as part of a federal investigation into his involvement with the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. The videos were obtained in April by news affliate KPRC.
Juarez worked off-duty as a security guard at "El Chapparo" nightclub, where the videos were recorded. One clip from March 2011 allegedly shows Juarez offering two assault rifles to an undercover federal agent in exchange for $4,500. A second video recorded in July 2011 allegedly shows him giving information to an informant on two license plate numbers he ran through the HPD database connected to people he was told owed $800,000 in gang money.
Investigators contend that Juarez had also been working as a "straw buyer" for his nephew and Zetas cartel member Efrain Grimaldo by purchasing automobiles for Grimaldo and his business associates to hide the owners' identities. Grimaldo was sentenced to 33 years in prison in September 2014 after being found guilty of distributing 3,615 lbs (1,640 kilograms) of cocaine throughout the U.S. Newly released court documents show that Juarez and Grimaldo have been participating together in the conspiracy to distribute cocaine from New York to Louisiana since 2006.
Juarez's lawyer, George Murphy, claimed in the bond hearing that his client was unaware that he was doing business with drug dealers. "He had no idea these people were associated with any drug activity at all, and if he had known he wouldn't have done it."
Juarez has consistently been rated as "outstanding" or "strong" on his performance reviews at the Houston Police Department, according to The Houston Chronicle. He has been suspended from the Houston police force and is being held in New Orleans, where his $500,000 bond was overruled by a federal judge. He faces life in prison if found guilty of his alleged crimes.
