Retired Houston officer gets 60 years in couple's drug raid deaths that revealed corruption

HOUSTON (AP) — A former Houston police officer was sentenced to 60 years in prison on Tuesday for the murder of a married couple during a drug raid that revealed systemic corruption in the department’s narcotics unit.

Gerald Goines, 60, was convicted in the deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58, who were shot along with their dog after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock” warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering.

Goines had been free on bond since he was charged in the January 2019 deaths, until his convictions last month. He looked down but had no visible reaction as he heard the sentences for each count of murder, which will run concurrently. The jurors had deliberated for more than 10 hours.

Ryan Tuttle then sat on the witness stand with a framed photograph of his father and stepmother. He said they were “victims of severe systematic failure in police work, particularly with the supervision of Gerald Goines.”

“My father and my stepmother were not involved in any drug dealing. They were good people. They did not deserve this,” he said, and then stared at Goines as he walked away.

Prosecutors said Goines falsely claimed an informant had bought heroin at the couple’s home from a man with a gun, setting up the violent confrontation in which the couple was killed and four officers, including Goines, were shot and wounded, and a fifth was injured. A Texas Ranger who investigated the raid testified that the officers fired first, killing the dog and likely provoking Tuttle’s gunfire.

His lawyers acknowledged he lied to get the search warrant, but sought to diminish the impact. Two witnesses — a fellow officer and the judge who signed the warrant — said the raid never would have happened if Goines had told the truth.

The probe into the drug raid uncovered allegations of much wider corruption. Goines was among a dozen officers tied to the narcotics squad who were indicted on other charges. A judge dismissed charges against some of them, but a review of thousands of cases involving the unit led prosecutors to dismiss many cases, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines.

Defense attorney Nicole DeBorde had asked for the minimum sentence of five years, saying Goines had dedicated his life to keeping drugs off the streets. “Our community is safer with someone like Gerald, with the heart to serve and the heart to care,” she said.

Prosecutors asked for life in prison, telling jurors that Goines preyed upon people he was supposed to protect with a yearslong pattern of corruption that has severely damaged the relationship between law enforcement and the community.

Investigators later found only small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house, and while Houston’s police chief at the time, Art Acevedo, initially praised Goines as being “tough as nails,” he later suspended him when the lies emerged. Goines later retired as the probes continued.

Goines also made a drug arrest in 2004 in Houston of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer sparked a nationwide reckoning on racism in policing. A Texas board in 2022 declined a request that Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for that drug conviction.

“We filed our notice of appeal. We think we have some excellent appellate issues. We still don’t believe legally that he is guilty of the crime of felony murder and we look forward to having the appellate courts review this,” Nicole DeBorde, one of Goines’ attorneys, told reporters after the sentence was read.

Goines also faces federal criminal charges in connection with the raid, and federal civil rights lawsuits filed by the families of Tuttle and Nicholas against Goines, 12 other officers and the city of Houston are set to be tried in November.

Nicholas' family expressed gratitude after Goines' convictions in a statement saying that “the jury saw this case for what it was: Vicious murders by corrupt police, an epic cover-up attempt and a measure of justice, at least with Goines."

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