Texas Man Sentenced After Pleading Guilty to Violating the Federal Controlled Substances Act

Published 2:00 pm Sunday, April 3, 2022

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – JORGE OMAR JIMINEZ, age 24,  a resident of San Antonio, Texas, was sentenced on March 31, 2022 to eighteen (18) months’ imprisonment, three (3) months of supervised release, and a $100.00 mandatory special assessment fee by U.S. District Judge Wendy B. Vitter after pleading guilty to a one-count indictment charging him with possession with intent to distribute one-hundred (100) grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B), announced U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans.

According to court documents, in February 2020, a Mexican drug trafficker contacted a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) confidential source and offered to supply the source with a half-kilogram of heroin by way of a courier.  On February 9, 2020, the courier, JIMINEZ, arrived in New Orleans and checked into a hotel on Canal Street.  The following day, under the direction of HSI agents, the source arranged a meeting with JIMINEZ to conduct the transaction.  As JIMINEZ left the hotel to meet the source, agents approached JIMINEZ who was in possession of a black bag.  After obtaining consent from JIMINEZ, agents searched the bag and located a pair of black tennis shoes inside a separate back pack.  Concealed in the soles of each shoe was a black tar substance.  Laboratory analysis confirmed the substance as heroin and the total weight was approximately one half-kilogram.  In a post-arrest interview, JIMINEZ told agents an unknown man provided him with the shoes in McAllen, Texas and instructed him to travel to New Orleans and sell the drugs to the source for $11,000.00.

This case was investigated by the Office of Homeland Security Investigations.  The prosecution was handled by Assistant United States Attorney André Jones.