Moises Jimenez (Photo: LinkedIn)
Detroit Police are reopening their investigation into a former homicide detective who retired last year following reports he may have stymied two murder investigations. Now it appears Moises Jimenez may have done so out of fear that a drug cartel would harm his family members in Mexico.
Previously, the state Attorney General's Office declined to press charges against Jimenez, who retired last year with the designation of "retired under investigation/pending discipline," The Detroit News reports. Now, authorities will again determine if criminal charges are warranted.
In a paywalled story, The News says Jimenez is suspected of withholding evidence in two cases connected to convicted drug dealer Jose Sandoval, due to Sandoval's connections to Mexican trafficking organizations.
Jimenez had a 27-year police career.
An assistant Wayne County prosecutor wrote in a Feb. 14, 2019, memo that Jimenez told county investigators he had withheld evidence linking convicted drug dealer Jose Sandoval to the September 2012 killings of Ileana Cuevas, 15, and Tommy Edwards, 28. They were gunned down four days apart in southwest Detroit.
"Jimenez has now admitted to deliberately failing to investigate Jose Sandoval because Sandoval is tied to a powerful Mexican drug cartel," Carole Stanyar of the prosecutor's Conviction Integrity Unit wrote in the 20-page memo to Prosecutor Kym Worthy.
"Jimenez has family in Mexico, and Jimenez feared his family would be killed," wrote Stanyar, an Ann Arbor attorney who was a consultant for the Conviction Integrity Unit. She added that Jimenez didn't disclose to prosecutors that federal agents had told him they had put a tracker on Sandoval's car during their drug investigation that showed the vehicle was at one of the crime scenes shortly before and after the shooting.
