(CN) --- A grand jury added two organized crime indictments Wednesday to a slew of charges Houston police are facing over a raid in which officers shot and killed a married couple.
Twelve former and current Houston police have been indicted in connection with the raid, and the legal problems for two of them grew Wednesday.
A Harris County grand jury indicted retired HPD Officer Gerald Goines, 56, and current HPD Officer Felipe Gallegos, 33, alleging they engaged in organized crime.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Goines and Gallegos are accused of involvement in a long-running overtime theft scam uncovered by her prosecutors’ investigation of the raid.
Goines retired in March 2019 following a Jan. 28, 2019 raid in which Goines and members of his Houston police narcotics squad, executing a no-knock warrant, barged into the home of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his wife Rhogena Nicholas, 58, and a gun battle ensued.
Police fatally shot the couple after Tuttle opened fire on them and four officers, including Goines, were shot in the melee.
Goines is also facing state murder and federal civil rights charges after investigations by HPD, the Harris County DA’s Office and the FBI reportedly found he had obtained the warrant with a bogus affidavit.
Goines is accused of lying in the affidavit he had witnessed a confidential informant buy heroin from a man at the couple’s home.
Gallegos has also been charged with murder for shooting Tuttle.
Ogg said Wednesday the latest charges are expected to conclude her office’s investigation of Houston police corruption, a sweeping probe set in motion by the fatal raid.
Goines’ attorney, Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube, said the indictment returned Wednesday is based on information another grand jury used to indict five other HPD officers in January over the same alleged overtime scam.
“We cannot guess at why Mr. Goines was singled out for a delayed indictment on the same charge as the others, we are eager for a jury to hear the facts in court in the cases this DA has lodged against Gerald,” DeBorde Hochglaube told the Houston Chronicle.
Ogg is also eager for a jury to weigh in.
“Now it’s time to get this case to trial before a jury of Harris County residents, so the public can learn exactly what occurred on January 28, 2019, and determine whether or not these defendants will be held accountable for the crimes,” she said in a statement.
Gallegos’ attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he is “absolutely dumbfounded” by Gallegos’ organized crime indictment.
“Felipe is totally not guilty of these most recent charges, which are really an offense invented by DA's office to begin with. Just as he is not guilty in the murder charge, where he was trying to save the lives of the four officers shot in the raid,” Hardin told the Chronicle.
Gallegos’ murder trial is set for Sept. 13.
Two defendants have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the raid.
Goines’ former HPD partner, retired officer Steven Bryant, 47, pleaded guilty June 1 to a federal records tampering charge. His sentencing is set for Aug. 24.
Prosecutors say he wrote a bogus report stating he had found a plastic bag containing two packets of heroin at Tuttle’s and Nicholas’ home.
Patricia Ann Garcia, 54, pleaded guilty to a federal charge arising from 911 calls she made three weeks before the raid in which she lied that her fictitious daughter “Melissa” was being held against her will by Tuttle and Nicholas, her neighbors, in their home and the husband and wife were heroin dealers and had a machine gun.
Garcia was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison on June 8.
All 12 officers facing criminal charges over the raid are also defendants in a federal wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit filed by the Tuttle and Nicholas families.
The officers reportedly raided the home expecting to find bricks of heroin. They did not find any, just small amounts of cocaine and marijuana.
Harris County prosecutors have also reviewed more than 1,000 criminal cases Goines worked on.
One man convicted of a drug crime after Goines arrested him in 2008 had his conviction overturned, and prosecutors say dozens more convictions are in question due to Goines’ false testimony.
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