BOSTON, MA - A former Boston Police officer pled guilty today in U.S. District Court to conspiring to extort $265,000 from a man on behalf of Colombian drug dealers.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - New England Field Division and Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, announced today that JOSE ANTONIO ORTIZ, 45, formerly of 41 Endicott Street, Salem, Massachusetts, pled guilty to four federal felonies: conspiracy to distribute cocaine; possession with intent to distribute cocaine; conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted extortion.

At a plea hearing this afternoon before United States District Judge Rya Zobel, ORTIZ admitted that in late August 2006, he sought to extort a man whom ORTIZ believed to be responsible for a drug deal which had gone bad. ORTIZ, who was wearing his Boston Police uniform and badge, and was carrying his sidearm, told the man that he worked with two drug dealers and a number of Colombians who had lost money on a drug transaction and he was there to collect the debt. ORTIZ told the man that the Colombians would injure him if he did not pay the money, and that ORTIZ knew everything about him and his family, and showed the man a photograph he had of him. In a subsequent recorded conversation, ORTIZ told the man that he owed $265,000.

Between September 2006 and May 2007, the victim paid ORTIZ $6,000 in cash in three installments. Video recordings of the meetings revealed ORTIZ stuffing cash in the pockets of his police uniform. Ultimately, the victim, at the direction of law enforcement, offered to pay off ORTIZ and his drug dealing co-conspirators with 3 kilograms of cocaine and $5,000. ORTIZ demanded more, insisting on 4 kilograms of cocaine and a total of $10,000.

On May 2, 2007, ORTIZ met with the victim in Revere, Massachusetts, where ORTIZ was scheduled to take possession of the cash and cocaine. ORITZ appeared at the meeting armed and in his Boston Police Department uniform and badge. ORTIZ was shown the four kilograms of cocaine, and took possession of the keys to the car in which the cocaine and $4,000 in cash were concealed. Shortly after taking possession of the keys, ORTIZ was arrested by federal agents. In an interview shortly after his arrest, ORTIZ admitted that he had been sent by a drug dealer to collect a drug debt, and that he had obtained $6,000 in payments.

Testimony at a hearing on May 9, 2007 also revealed that a search of ORTIZ’S Boston Police Department locker following his arrest, resulted in the seizure of more than $7,000 in cash. Of the cash recovered from ORTIZ’S locker, $700 were bills that had been provided by the victim to ORTIZ in payment of the drug debt.

ORTIZ is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Zobel on July 29, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. ORTIZ faces up to 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine on each of the two extortion charges. On each of the two drug charges ORTIZ faces a maximum sentence of 40 years imprisonment, and a $2 million fine. ORTIZ faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. He also faces a period of supervised release between four years and life. ORTIZ has been detained by the U.S. Marshal’s Service since the time of his arrest in May 2007.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation - New England Field Division, in conjunction with the Boston Police Department Anti-Corruption Unit. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. McNeil in Sullivan’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.