In a trial that started Tuesday in the 9th district court of Montgomery County with Judge Burgess visiting Samson Gonzales age of Conroe was sentenced to 4 life sentences and one 60 year sentence for possession with intent to deliver.
On May 11, 2007, Samson’s family home was raided by MCSO and gaming machines, 1.5 pounds of cocaine, 2 lbs of meth, 400 g hydrocodone and 400 grams of Xanax were recovered, multiple guns, and close to $80,000 was recovered. Samson Gonzales, his mother Angelita Gonzales, his brother Fidel Gonzales, and his wife Nina Rodriguez were arrested before the day was out. Due to a technicality, the charges were eventually dropped. Even as narcotics officers were on that scene buyers kept driving up their road and officers arrested the also.
But then in June 2009 HPD Narcotics Squad 9 and the Montgomery County Precinct 4 Constables Office started working on tips that he was active again.
An HPD undercover bought some drugs from a dealer later turned informant in the Kingwood area. they then followed the dealer who sold the dope to Townsend and 59 in Humble where he met the defendant Samson Gonzales. During the meeting, HPD surrounded the vehicle and ordered Samson and Stokes who was with him to show his hands but he was preoccupied. other officers converged and got him out of the vehicle.
in the vehicle, they found a ledger which appeared to be a drug ledger and also a torn up piece of paper and a card with what appeared to be a combination on it.
This opened up the entire investigation. the torn paper was a ledger page showing money amounts, names of what appeared to be his dealers. also on the floor was almost $1500 some of which were marked bills from the buy that happened a short time earlier. the card with the numbers turned out to be the combination to a safe at Stokes home and Samson Gonzales wife had the master key when they got her.
Samson was smart, he kept no drugs on him, he would get large orders in , meet at dealers homes where he had a safe which the dealer did not have the combination. he would take out just enough for the dealer to make his sales.
Several dealers were given probation in exchange for their testimony,
After almost six hours Thursday night and Friday morning the jury found him guilty on all five counts.
His attorney Billy Langston and George Jacobs argued for probation. his mother was called to the stand and asked if she knew what was going on. She said he had a landscape business but did not know about the drugs. She testified it was a cash business as all the business funds went into a Chase bank account and all the members of the family worked together. She also testified that police had shown up several times at their home but never took anything. This is the same mother that was arrested with the drugs in the house in the 2007 case.
Gonzales attorney plead with the jury for probation. He said it was only fair since the five informants got deferred probation. Told the jury he needed to be there for his family. Assistant District Attorney Joel Daniels sternly said to the jury, “Hammer him, let him have it for the community”.” “Your verdict needs to send a message to what happens to drug dealers in Montgomery County.
He showed the jury the ledger and the names. Zeus (he has a brother Zeua). Jason, (has a brother Jason),
He told the jury of the 2004 assault charge in Harris County. He explained the 2005 probation for drugs in Harris County. and the 2006 assault in Harris County.
The jury then took a lunch break before starting to deliberate. During the break, the defendant was heard saying to a family member the DA had offered him ten years.
The deliberations started close to 1 pm and continued until 4:30 pm when they reached their decision.
As the judge read out the punishment Samson Gonzales and his mother let out a scream and started sobbing.
The Judge pronounced four of the five cases with life sentences and the fourth indictment a sixty-year sentence.
Samson Gonzales kept sobbing and looking at his lawyer stating, “I got a life”, “I got a life”.
After the paperwork was completed the upgraded security staff escorted Samson Gonzales in shackles to a waiting van for his trip to the Montgomery County Jail.
Assistant District Attorney Joel Daniels said the Montgomery County Precinct 4 Constables Office and the Houston Police Department did an outstanding job putting this case together and getting five solid counts that the District Attorney’s Office could prosecute.
Daniel’s said the evidence showed that Samson was a drug dealer who systematically distributed drugs to street-level dealers who were most of the time in possession of the drugs.
“He would buy in quantities and then with street-level dealers he would break it up into smaller packages that were appropriate deliveries, “ Daniels said.
“He left the drugs at the street level dealers homes. He would keep it in safes that only Samson knew the combination to. He would go to their homes and take out only enough for them to make the deliveries for a period of days and leave the remainder in there.
“What we really saw in the evidence was the attempt to distance himself from the distribution of narcotics and make it very difficult for law enforcement to catch him.”, Daniels said.
Talking about the case itself Daniels said, “the only reservations I had about the case was making the connections between the physical controlled substance and the actual distribution in this particular defendant,” Daniels said.
Samson still faces three-possession with intent to deliver charges in Harris County.
CLICK TO VIEW MAY 2007 DRUG BUST AT SAMSONS HOME THAT WAS DISMISSED ON A TECHNICALITY:
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