A Plano man was sentenced to 40 years in prison by a Collin County judge on Tuesday following his latest drug conviction.
Dominic Miguel Rivera, 40, faces four decades in prison after being found guilty by a jury in Collin County of his seventh felony. The charge of possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine stems from a search of Rivera’s vehicle during a traffic stop by Richardson police on November 15, 2022.
A backpack Rivera had tucked between his legs contained 22.61 grams of methamphetamine, which McKinney Police Department narcotics detective Joe Arp testified during the defendant’s trial amounted to over 100 individual doses, according to the Collin County District Attorney’s Office. Officers also found a pill bottle containing marijuana, an electronic scale, and several baggies inside the backpack, allegedly alongside a loaded handgun on Rivera’s person.
Rivera was first convicted of four separate drug charges in February 2012 and was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison by a Collin County court. However, he ended up in legal trouble again in 2019, with Dallas County placing him on probation for second-degree felony possession of methamphetamine. He violated his probation a few weeks later, earning him three years in jail in 2020.
However, Rivera was eventually released on parole, which ended roughly eight months prior to his latest arrest in late 2022.
Dallas County and its district attorney John Creuzot have received heavy criticism for allowing convicted criminals out on parole who go on to commit further crimes, including from Gov. Greg Abbott, as reported by The Dallas Express. The Dallas district attorney’s penchant for being soft on crime even inspired the nickname “Let-’em-Go Creuzot.”
In contrast, “Collin County will not tolerate career drug dealers,” Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis said about the 40-year sentence issued to Rivera by Judge Benjamin Smith.
Earlier this month, Judge Smith sentenced a 30-year-old Dallas member of the Aryan Brotherhood to 30 years behind bars for a first-degree felony charge of possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine, as previously covered in The Dallas Express.
Dakota Carroll was found with 58 grams of methamphetamine and less than 1 gram of heroin during a traffic stop by Richardson police in 2020. He also had an extensive criminal history prior to his arrest, including robbery and aggravated assault convictions in Dallas County.
There have been 9,287 drug offenses logged within Dallas so far this year, according to the Dallas Police Department’s crime analytics dashboard. This marks an increase of 3.7% year over year.
Due in large part to a severe officer shortage within DPD, Downtown Dallas has seen significant hikes in its rate of drug offenses, robberies, and auto theft incidents, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. Despite a City report recommending a force of around 4,000 officers for a city the size of Dallas, the department has fewer than 3,200.
Meanwhile, neighboring Fort Worth’s downtown area has seen significantly lower crime rates and is patrolled by a designated police unit working alongside private security officers.
