I’ve had a chance to fully digest the five-page criminal complaint filed today against Bears receiver Sam Hurd. The document reveals that Hurd submitted to a consensual interview with federal authorities in July 2011 -- but Hurd allegedly kept on buying and selling cocaine and marijuana, in large amounts.
On July 27, a person known only as T.L. allegedly was attempting to purchase four kilograms of cocaine on behalf of Hurd. T.L. wanted to buy the cocaine at an early hour, because Hurd would be taking it to a “northern destination.”
Coincidentally -- or otherwise -- Hurd signed with the Bears on July 29. Training camp opened in Illinois on July 30.
After a confidential informant arranged to sell the cocaine to T.L., but before the transaction was completed, the authorities arranged a routine traffic stop, at which time $88,000 was seized. T.L. told authorities that the car and the money belonged to Hurd.
On July 28, one day before the Bears gave Hurd a $1.35 million signing bonus as part of a three-year contract, Hurd engaged in a consensual interview with federal authorities, in an effort to recover his $88,000. Hurd said he had conducted bank withdrawals and wire transfers, and that T.L. had the car containing the money because T.L. was performing maintenance and detailing on the vehicle.
Hurd provided federal authorities with a bank statement reflecting the withdrawals. The statement and the amounts allegedly did not match.
At that point, a normal person would have been scared straight. (Then again, a normal person would never have been trying to buy four kilograms of cocaine.) Roughly two weeks later, however, T.L. negotiated with the same informant the purchase of five kilograms of cocaine on behalf of Hurd. The discussions continued in early September, but the transaction apparently was not consummated at the time.
Then, in early December, T.L. told the informant that Hurd wanted to meet personally with the informant to discuss further business. Conversations between T.L. and the informant culminated in Wednesday’s meeting at Morton’s Steakhouse in Rosemont. At the meeting, Hurd told the informant and an undercover officer that Hurd wanted to buy five to ten kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana per week. The undercover agent eventually gave Hurd a kilogram of cocaine. Hurd left the restaurant with the cocaine, and he was arrested in his car.
The criminal complaint raises significant questions regarding the three-month lag in communications between September and December between T.L. and the informant. It seems odd that Hurd would have so quickly found someone in Chicago who could supply four kilograms of cocaine per week, while struggling to finalize a single transaction with the informant in Dallas. It could be that Hurd was lying about the current breadth of his operations, in the hopes of securing the trust and respect of the people with whom he was still dealing in Texas.
Given the clumsy manner in which Hurd handled the $88,000 that was seized only a day or so before he received $1.35 million from the Bears, common sense suggests that, if he were buying four kilograms of cocaine per week from someone in Chicago, it will be easy to collect enough evidence to prove that Hurd was buying and selling that amount of drugs.
Time will tell whether Hurd was indeed trafficking that much cocaine per week. For now, though, there’s a chance that Hurd has been operating less like Heisenberg and more like Jesse Pinkman. (Bitch.)
Though it won’t allow Hurd to avoid charges arising from his apparent receipt with intent to distribute of one kilogram of cocaine from an undercover officer, it could mean that he isn’t quite the kingpin that he painted himself to be last night.