Cap, gown and ... some cocaine?
Man nabbed in Goliad traffic stop claims drugs were his son's graduation present
May 29, 2007 - Posted at 12:00 a.m.
BY ALLISON MILES - VICTORIA ADVOCATE
A Mission man arrested Saturday night after a routine traffic stop in Goliad told deputies that the cocaine found in his vehicle was a graduation present for his son in Houston.
"I have no idea what he was thinking," said Sgt. Danny Madrigal, investigator with the Goliad Sheriff's Department. "We've never had anybody saying, 'I'm taking this to give to my son. He's graduating.'"
However, Madrigal said, "The following day I spoke to him, and he told me it was for personal use."
Goliad County deputies Sgt. Gary Cowley and K9 Officer Martha Martinez pulled over Omar Cruz Garza, 35, for speeding within city limits.
The deputies suspected something was up when they saw items including a DVD player, a safe, power tools and camera inside the vehicle, Madrigal said, and searched the 2006 Dodge pickup.
"He just had a lot of things that you wouldn't normally carry if you were going to visit somebody," he said.
When deputies asked for Garza's license, he handed over a fictitious I.D., Madrigal said - likely because Garza is on parole until Friday.
"He probably thought he'd run into some troubles there with the parole board," Madrigal said. "But he had his name tattooed on his back, which was an indicator that he wasn't the guy he reported to be at first. We found another I.D. that turned out to be him."
Paperwork inside the safe contained the same name as the fraudulent I.D., he said. When officials contacted the Mission cardholder, they found he'd reported property taken in a residential burglary.
"Some of the loot was recovered," Madrigal said. "There's still other property in the vehicle we feel was taken in another residential burglary. Those investigations are being turned over to the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department."
But wait, there's more.
Investigation showed the truck was reported stolen 12 hours earlier from a Mission used car lot.
"I've contacted the owner of the car lot, and he's expressed that he's going to file charges on it - for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Any time someone steals a motor vehicle, any county he passed can file charges. We'll be filing in Goliad County."
Thus far Garza has accumulated charges for unauthorized use of a vehicle, possession of a controlled substance and failure to identify, among traffic misdemeanors, Madrigal said. The possession charge carries a bond of $20,000 and $1,000 for failure to identify.
"I'd suspect there will be some forgery charges," he said. "He'd stolen some checks from the burglary victim's account and had passed several of those checks to the tune of several hundred dollars - some at convenience stores and some at a Sears merchandise store. He passed checks along the Rio Grande Valley area to here."
Madrigal said he's thankful the deputies were alert.
"My hats off to them for being a little suspicious and for the recovery of the cocaine," he said. "It was good that they got a little curious about this character. Otherwise he might've made it to Houston with the stolen loot and then it might not have ever been recovered. That would've really been like finding a needle in a haystack."
The investigation is still under way, according to a Goliad County Sheriff's Department news release, but the recovery of between one and four grams of cocaine itself is a good thing.
"Our investigators are currently working to find out more about this vehicle and its driver," Goliad County Sheriff Robert DeLaGarza said in the release. "This is one graduation gift that we are glad that won't be enjoyed by a student."
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