Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Rick Roach: A bigger fool or hypocrite?

"If I'm ever a prosecutor again, which will never happen, I would be much less Rambo-ish and more compassionate in the way I handle an offense, particularly for users," meth-head Panhandle prosecutor Rick Roach told the New York Times in an extensive article.

It's hard to know if Roach is a bigger fool or a bigger hypocrite. You be the judge.

As evidence of foolishness, Roach told the Times he had contemplated a patent for mixing meth and "performance enhancing" prescription drugs to boost his libido, which he said had declined due to taking medicine cabinet full of drugs for depression he'd bought without prescriptions over the Internet.
"They were all debilitating on my libido, which created problems with my wife," he said. Viagra, he said, left him with a splitting headache. He said that in Breckenridge he had started injecting methamphetamine, finding eventually that, mixed with the sexual enhancer Levitra, it had the desired effect.

"I was going to patent it," he said with a hollow laugh. "I'm definitely a mixed-up person."
Still, though foolishness has made a strong case, I think hypocrisy might still win out. Check out the lead to the Times' story:
No one prosecuted the war on drugs in the Texas Panhandle more zealously than Richard James Roach. As the blustery and hot-tempered Republican district attorney for five counties overrun with methamphetamines, he had eked out an election victory in 2000 vowing a crackdown and was soon gleefully reeling off the harsh sentences he had wrung from juries: 36 years, 38 years, 40 years, 60 years, 75 years - even 99 years. "I think it's quite clear that the good citizens of this district are fed up with drugs," he said.

He had barely missed riding the issue to victory in an earlier race. "My campaign is centered around doing something with the dope dealers," he told a local newspaper in 1996, complaining that "it's kind of hard to fight drugs when you've got dirty law enforcement."

Hmmmm. Dirty law enforcement? Yeah, that'd be terrible.

Roach was one of the most aggressive pursuants of drug-related asset forfeiture cases among all District Attorneys in the state. Now, investigators want to know what happened to the money, reported the Times:
Officials also were looking into his handling of millions of dollars in cash confiscated from drug traffickers along the Interstate 40 corridor that skirts the sparsely populated counties of Gray, Wheeler, Roberts, Hemphill and Lipscomb, where only 33,500 people live, fewer than 8 per square mile.
Rick Roach isn't a typical prosecutor, but among officialdom he was a tolerated one. His employees knew he was taking drugs, the voters and his political opponents suspected it, but he was just re-elected in November. He'd still be prosecuting today if it hadn't turned out his secretary was a snitch for the DEA and the FBI.

For more see the links here. Via Talk Left

CLARIFICATION: A police officer friend emails to correct my usage of the word "snitch" regarding Roach's secretary: "
A snitch is someone who provides information for a profit - either being for money, leniency, or favorable treatment. All other people are simply witnesses who have come forward for no personal gain." Point well taken.

1 comment:

  1. Hello. My name is Keith Hammond and I have been a victim of “texas justice”.
    I am now a “convicted felon” in that I was “convicted” of stealing from a federally licensed radio station that I own as a sole proprietor. This was due to a personal vendetta that has been carried out by a district attorney who has since confessed to and been convicted of using and selling drugs through his courthouse office. I helped in having this happen and, unfortunately for me, texas “law” makes absolutely NO provision for “DA’s who seek revenge during their last days in office”.

    Our web sites are located at http://www.shamrocktx.us and at http://www.kbkh.com .

    About a month ago, someone posted a link to the story of the Shamrock Texas radio station being repeatedly burglarized while local authorities refuse to investigate or to even admit that something is going on. Well, it's happened again and this time the owner caught the burglars and interviewed the on camera as they crawled from the hole in the wall from which they had just yanked an air conditioner. They admit to having been hired to steal equipment from the tower site and that they were told it would be ok because the city wants that equipment to disappear anyway. They are admitting on camera to participating in a conspiracy with the director of Shamrock Economic Development, the district attorney and others. It's fascinating to watch because they seem to not care to hold back on the information. I have watched this story unfold for almost six years and I have seen the radio station owner accused of some really weird things (such as stealing from his own accounts) but, if I had any doubt at all, it is now gone for sure! But, not too surprisingly, local officials still claim that no burglary has occurred even after I've watched the recording for myself. The station owner gave up on filing police reports that never seem to get any results and simply uploaded the video straight to youtube. Here is a link:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch...

    I just thought that those who have followed this story might be interested in seeing that there is a huge cover-up going on, here. People need to be asking some serious questions of the director of Shamrock Economic Development as well as the district attorney for the 31st judicial district.

    My hopes are to organize enough victims of this local crime-ring (led by Roach) to start a FEDERAL investigation that would NOT involve anything to do with the state of “texas”.

    Please, if you would be interested in participating in any way at all, contact me.

    Keith Hammond
    MonsterFM.com / Broadcast Technical Services
    866-726-9209 (Toll-Free)

    ShamrockTX.us - Simply unbelievable!

    ReplyDelete