Acting United States Attorney Matthew R. Molsen announced that Luis Perez, a 37-year-old resident of Rosenburg, Texas, received an 87-month prison sentence in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska. The sentencing took place on March 12, 2025, for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. United States District Court Judge Brian C. Buescher handed down the sentence. In addition to his prison term, Perez will undergo three years of supervised release following his incarceration and is required to pay a $10,000 fine.
The investigation began when law enforcement identified co-defendant Gary Pope as a cocaine dealer in the Omaha area. This led to a three-month wiretap of Pope's cell phone in 2022. The wiretap intercepts confirmed that Pope was receiving cocaine shipments from Perez. These shipments involved kilogram quantities sent from Texas by courier Joseph Reyes, another co-defendant. Reyes was apprehended on May 23, 2022, in Kansas with two kilograms of cocaine intended for Omaha.
Following Reyes's arrest, Pope sourced cocaine from a different supplier in Texas. Co-defendant Lonnie Embers was detained on July 15, 2022, in Oklahoma with two kilograms of cocaine also bound for Omaha from this new supplier.
Perez is the last among the four defendants to be sentenced. Pope received an identical sentence of 87 months for his involvement in the Nebraska case and an additional 66 months for charges prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa related to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession of a firearm linked to drug trafficking crimes. Meanwhile, Reyes and Embers were each sentenced to serve 46 months.
The Drug Enforcement Administration conducted this investigation as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation aimed at dismantling high-level criminal organizations threatening the United States through a coordinated multi-agency approach led by prosecutors.
Additional information about OCDETF can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.