The Scandalous Hypocrisy Of The Texas District Attorney Who Waged War On Drugs

Fiery, heavy-handed, and dangerously temperamental, there were few names feared more in a Texas courtroom than Rick James Roach.

In the year 2000, the Texas Panhandle was in the grips of an insidious epidemic: methamphetamine. The drug had seeped into nearly every corner of the five sparsely-populated counties east of Amarillo and residents were eager for a change.

That same year, 55-year-old Rick Roach ran for District Attorney. His campaign was largely rooted in a promise: an unforgiving crackdown on users and dealers of the hard drug that had wrecked the homes of Gray, Wheeler, Roberts, Hemphill, and Lipscomb Counties.

Voters heralded him into office.

Surprisingly enough, Roach held true to his campaign promise, and began a zealous warpath of prosecution.

The Enforcer

Lonny Robbins, the then-mayor of Pampa, told Texas Monthly, "He told us he wouldn't be slapping drug offenders on the wrist, and he didn't. He truly seemed to be getting things done for us."

A New York Times article on Roach revealed that he asked juries to deliver steep sentences for drug offenses, and they obliged.

36 years, 38 years, 40 years, 60 years, 75 years - even 99 years. "I think it's quite clear that the good citizens of this district are fed up with drugs," he said.

While the citizens may have been fed up with drugs, the district attorney himself had developed an appetite for them.

The prosecutor had long suffered from depression. The only thing he had found that worked to lift his mood, he told the New York Times, was mixing Levitra and methamphetamine and administering via injections.

While Roach was cajoling jurors into handing down life sentences for drug cases, he was simultaneously rousing suspicion of his drug abuse by those around him

A state trooper testified that Roach had tried to bribe him and another trooper into bringing him more seized evidence (like drugs) by offering them a share of seized funds.

In later investigations, FBI agents were able to confirm that Roach was obtaining drugs from defendants and local dealers.

In a particularly bold move, Roach had shown up at a drug lab in Amarillo with a court order "authorizing him to receive a stash of ecstasy tablets along with a whopping two kilos of cocaine."

But despite the rumors and the suspicions, one dared to confront the district attorney due to his popularity. Rick "The Enforcer" Roach continued on.

There would be one person who would bring the troubled "Enforcer" to his knees: his secretary.

The Secretary

The FBI approached Rebecca Bailey and gave her one job: to get close to Roach and to determine if he was abusing his authority by using drugs.

Wearing a wire, the secretary got the job done.

In a federal affidavit, Bailey described how she had witnessed Roach inject himself with methamphetamine twice at an apartment and prepare syringe to inject himself while in his office at Pampa's courthouse.

The Arrest

On January 11, 2005, a mere 11 days into his second four-year term as district attorney, Rick Roach was arrested at the Gray County Courthouse.

Authorities raked through Roach's home, a separate apartment, and his courthouse office. According to search warrant inventory lists, agents seized "35 additional guns, along with what appeared to be a stash of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana."

The charges filed against him were bountiful.

His four initial federal charges included counts of possession of methamphetamine, possession of cocaine and methamphetamine with intent to deliver, and the unlawful possession of a firearm by a drug addict.

His state charges were for drug possession and a perjury charge that would be filed after he filed an affidavit claiming indigence and asked for a court-appointed attorney following his arrest.

The Deals

Roach retained an attorney from Amarillo, Bill Kelly, who quickly went to work and cut a deal with the U.S. attorney's office for his federal charges.

Three of the indictments would be dropped in exchange for Roach relinquishing his office and a guilty plea for possessing a firearm while being a drug addict.

Judge Mary Lou Robinson handed down a five-year federal sentence in June 2005 and was quick to admonish the disgraced prosecutor for his betrayal of the public trust.

In June 2006, a pretrial agreement was reached for his state charges and he was given an 18-year sentence that would run concurrently with his federal sentence. If he had been found guilty at trial, Roach stood to be sentenced to 51 years.

A Fool? Or Hypocrite? Or Unmedicated?

The dizzying downfall of Rick Roach was comprised of many moving parts. There were many clues in Roach's past that were overlooked. Many of his actions were brazen to the point of foolishness. So was Rick Roach a hypocritical man or a foolish one? Or was he the product of untreated mental illness--possibly bipolar disorder?

While the answer is left up to debate, the scandal of Rick Roach has largely been forgotten. Only a lone obituary tells of his fate. Roach died suddenly on June 9, 2017 after he took his dog on a walk and helped clear storm debris from a neighbor's yard in Lubbock, Texas.

Editor's note: this is the fifth installation of an ongoing series. You may read more stories of the scandals that changed Amarillo here.