Cocaine Trafficker Receives Statutory Maximum 20-Year Federal Prison Sentence

FORT WORTH, Texas — A Fort Worth, Texas, man, Josimar Badillo-Ortiz, 29, was sentenced on Friday by U.S. District Judge John McBryde to the statutory maximum sentence of 240 months in federal prison, following his guilty plea in November 2015 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

Badillo-Ortiz’s two co-conspirators, Joel Gonzalez-Oviedo, 25, and Juan Carranza-Moreno, 31, both of Fort Worth, are scheduled to be sentenced by Judge McBryde on March 25, 2016.  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, rather, Badillo-Ortiz dealt almost exclusively with Carranza-Moreno, who acted as a broker between the two.  As for his part, 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 September 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 September 15, 2015, and that he paid Carranza-Moreno approximately $58,000 in exchange for two kilograms of cocaine.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Arlington Police Department investigated the case.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith is in charge of the prosecution.

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