A two-year federal investigation into Hurd’s activities conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has produced no evidence that Hurd made a profit selling this marijuana. Most of the marijuana Hurd had shipped in from California, he says, he smoked himself or shared at cost with friends, including 20 to 25 teammates spanning his five years with the Cowboys. “I had educated myself on different strains and potencies and growing techniques. “Whatever was considered the loudest weed in California-I wanted a notch above that,” Hurd explains in a white cinder-block interview room in Seagoville, with only a hint of the pride he used to express on the subject. For the last three or four years of his NFL career he smoked high-grade California marijuana “all day, every day, and I didn’t want to hear anyone trying to tell me I had a problem,” he says. Among the few things not in dispute as his sentencing approaches is that Sam Hurd played for the Cowboys from 2006 through ’10 and for the Bears in ’11. And long before Hurd became entangled with the two men whose lies, he says, have pushed him to the brink of spending the rest of his days behind bars. Had Hurd received the 50 kilos per week he suggested at Morton’s, he would have poured nearly three tons of cocaine onto Chicago’s streets each year.īut let’s go back to a time before things got hairy, before the disastrous decisions that placed Hurd in the crosshairs of federal law enforcement. Probation and Pretrial Services Department has recommended that Hurd-husband to his college sweetheart, father to their one-year-old girl, still unanimously loved by friends and former teammates throughout the NFL- be sentenced to life in prison without parole when he next appears in federal court, on Nov. The alleged amounts of cocaine and marijuana in his case are so massive, the U.S. Today Sam Hurd is sitting in a federal detention center in Seagoville, Texas, awaiting sentencing after he pleaded guilty in April to a single count of conspiracy to traffic narcotics. And the 77-minute conversation that Hurd had just begun with Juan and Manuel was being recorded. The three men seated at the table next to him-the guys who looked like lawyers on an expense-account splurge-were undercover federal agents.
#HURD PATINA GREEN WINDOWS#
The diminutive Manuel, who had only spoken with Hurd on the phone, shook the player’s mammoth right hand as the cousin introduced himself in a soft voice: “Juan.”Īs with most things in Hurd’s life, however, things were not what they seemed to be behind Morton’s rain-beaded windows that night. When the two Mexicans arrived a few minutes later, it became clear that Manuel’s cousin-a stone-faced man wearing a black leather jacket and holding an expensive cowboy hat in one hand and a white gift bag emblazoned with HAPPY BIRTHDAY in the other-was in charge. With his gangly strut, Hurd followed a hostess through the bustling Morton’s dining room and was seated at table 54. But Manuel (not his real name) had gently insisted on the restaurant, suggesting the Morton’s near O’Hare because the traffickers were headed that way to pick up cash from an incoming courier. It had been a tense workday for the Bears, who had just lost three games in a row after starting the season 7-3, and after practice Hurd had called one of the Mexicans, Manuel, and asked if he and his cousin would come to Hurd’s suburban Lake Forest home instead of dining out.
The Bears’ receiver, then 26, had driven to the steak house following practice to meet with two Mexicans who moved cocaine for one of their country’s most violent cartels, the Zetas-a murderous army known for beheading its enemies and dumping their bodies on public streets. 14, 2011, Sam Hurd’s black Escalade arrived in a light rain outside a Morton’s restaurant in Chicago and backed into a street space near the entrance. 13, noon ET: With Sam Hurd's sentencing set for Wednesday, Michael McKnight has a few updates on where the case stands, including details of the loss of a witness and reactions to Tuesday's story. Hurd’s mother said he would appeal the sentence.
Under federal guidelines Hurd will have to serve 85 percent of that sentence before being eligible for parole. Solis sentenced Sam Hurd to 15 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. ET: Taking into account Hurd’s status as a first-time offender, U.S.
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