Boston, MA... A criminal associate of former Boston Police Officer Roberto Puldio pleaded guilty today for his role in framing an innocent man and then burgling his home while that man was held in police custody.

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 “TITO” ALVAREZ (a/k/a Jose Diaz, Joseph Diaz, Jose Pena, and Joseph Pena), age 42, formerly of 20 Dubois Street, Boston, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty today to a criminal Information charging him with conspiring to violate another person’s civil rights.

At the plea hearing today ALVAREZ admitted that he conspired with former Boston Police Officer Roberto Pulido in March and April 2005, to frame a former business associate of Pulido’s. According to an affidavit filed earlier in the case, Pulido had a falling-out with his business associate and was seeking to “methodically bring him down . . . take him out of business, take him out of his money.” In late March 2005, ALVAREZ and Pulido hatched a plan in which Pulido would plant contraband in the man’s car while ALVAREZ called the police to have the man arrested. Once in police custody, ALVAREZ was to enter the man’s apartment and steal a safe containing cash and jewelry.

ALVAREZ admitted that on March 29, 2005, according to their plan, Pulido planted the evidence under the driver’s seat of the man’s car. ALVAREZ then placed a series of staged calls to 911 claiming that the man had threatened him with a gun and that, “I know he still has the gun and I don’t know if he is going to come and shoot me. . . this guy is running around talking about he is gonna shoot me.” Police responded twice to the victim’s workplace as a result of ALVAREZ’S false accusations. The first time, officers took no action. The second time, officers searched the man’s car and found the planted evidence. While the man was in Boston Police custody, Pulido directed ALVAREZ to enter the man’s apartment and steal his safe. ALVAREZ made it look like a breaking and entering, and stole a safe which contained approximately $18,000 in cash and jewelry.

ALVAREZ faces a maximum penalty of 10 years incarceration, $250,000 fine and 3 years of supervised release. His sentencing hearing before United States District Judge Patti Saris is scheduled for July 23, 2008, at 2:00 pm. ALVAREZ was taken into custody after his guilty plea.

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