North Texas cocaine trafficker receives statutory maximum 20-year federal prison sentence

FORT WORTH, Texas — A North Texas man was sentenced Friday to the statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison following his guilty plea in November 2015 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

This sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas. This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Arlington (Texas) Police Department.

Josimar Badillo-Ortiz, 29, from Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced Feb. 26 by U.S. District Judge John McBryde to 240 months in prison.  Badillo-Ortiz’s two co-conspirators, Joel Gonzalez-Oviedo, 25, and Juan Carranza-Moreno, 31, both from Fort Worth, are scheduled to be sentenced by Judge McBryde March 25. They each pleaded guilty in November 2015 to the same offense, and each faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to documents filed in the case, beginning sometime last year or before, Gonzalez-Oviedo supplied Badillo-Ortiz and others with cocaine. Badillo-Ortiz rarely, if ever, dealt directly with Gonzalez-Oviedo. Instead, Badillo-Ortiz dealt almost exclusively with Carranza-Moreno who acted as a broker between the two.  Badillo-Ortiz worked on behalf of and at another person’s direction to distribute the cocaine he received from Gonzalez-Oviedo.

According to an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint in the case, on Sept. 15, 2015, law enforcement conducted a traffic stop on a truck they had observed leave a suspected narcotics stash house in Fort Worth. Gonzalez-Oviedo was the driver and Carranza-Moreno was the passenger. Acting on probable cause from a canine’s alert, a search of the truck was conducted, and law enforcement discovered an aftermarket “trap” in the air bag that contained nearly $58,000 in cash. Two days later, Badillo-Ortiz was arrested after law enforcement executed a search warrant at his residence and at the suspected narcotics stash house. He advised law enforcement that he had met with Carranza-Moreno and another man on Sept. 15, and that he paid Carranza-Moreno about $58,000 in exchange for two kilograms of cocaine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith, Northern District of Texas, is in charge of the prosecution.