"Public corruption 'intensified' along border, report says"

Public corruption ‘intensified’ along border, report says

A lawsuit that included allegations against Brownsville ISD trustee Enrique Escobedo was filed after he committed suicide.
By Aaron Nelsen

February 22, 2014 | Updated: February 22, 2014 10:57pm

DONNA — While many residents of the Rio Grande Valley took offense at Attorney General Greg Abbott’s reference to the third world while talking about corruption in their communities, most nevertheless believe corruption on the border is rampant.

Abbott’s comments this month ignited a political firestorm and a public backlash, but they also called attention to a spate of corruption cases in the Valley, adding to the perception it is plagued by corruption.

“I think there are a lot of people down here who think we have a big problem, more so than the rest of the state,” said Anthony Knopp, professor emeritus of history at the University of Texas at Brownsville. “The common response is corruption is everywhere. Well, there is corruption everywhere, but it’s intensified here along the border.”

Corruption in the Rio Grande Valley is amplified by the flow of illicit trade across the border, and, culturally, by the traditional Mexican mordida, or a pay-to-play system, Knopp said.

Though quantifying corruption is far from exact, a study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked South Texas 11th in the nation for public corruption convictions.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, which covers about 50 counties from near Houston southwest to Laredo, recorded 610 corruption convictions from 1976 to 2010, according to the study by the Department of Political Science and the Illinois Integrity Initiative of the University of Illinois’ Institute for Government and Public Affairs. The Chicago area, with 1,531 federal convictions, topped the list.

In Texas, the South Texas district had 261 convictions, at least a third more than the 185 in the Western district, which includes San Antonio, and the 188 in the Northern district from 2001 to 2010, according to the study, based on Justice Department figures. The Eastern district had only 63.

But there are factors other than total convictions to consider, such as the variety of institutions infected with corruption over time, said Dick Simpson, former head of the University of Illinois political science department and co-author of the corruption report. By that measure, corruption in the Rio Grande Valley appears considerable, said Simpson, who hasn’t studied the area but based his comments on a general description of recent convictions, which have spread into law enforcement, a county government and a court system.

“You’re talking about multiple patterns of corruption occurring and embedded in institutions,” Simpson said. “People talk about a rotten apple; this indicates a rotten barrel.”

Two federal agencies, the FBI and the Justice Department, have taken the lead in pursuing public corruption, including three investigations in Hidalgo County alone.

In his speech, Abbott referenced a street-level drug task force unit, dubbed the Panama Unit, caught in late 2012 stealing shipments from drug dealers and selling them to rivals. Nine former Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies and Mission police detectives eventually pleaded guilty or were convicted, including the county sheriff’s son and the Hidalgo police chief’s son.

Abbott also spoke of a former Starr County sheriff’s deputy, who was sent to prison last year for protecting drug dealers and their smuggling routes, and of a former Cameron County district attorney sentenced this month to 13 years in prison for his role in a cash-for-favors corruption scheme.

Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos was convicted of racketeering, bribery and extortion for accepting more than $100,000 from attorneys in exchange for favorable treatment of criminal cases in a far-reaching scandal that brought down state District Judge Abel Limas and former state Rep. Jim Solis, among others.

In yet another federal investigation along the border, Maverick County officials were found in 2012 to have pilfered hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from contractors who overcharged taxpayers.

But public officials and law enforcement officers in the Rio Grande Valley are quick to point out that corruption touches every corner of the state.

On Feb. 14 in Bexar County, state District Judge Angus McGinty resigned amid a federal investigation into allegations that he reduced bail for defendants in exchange for auto repairs on his personal vehicles.

“It’s very easy to point fingers and say ‘It’s in the Valley, it’s in the Valley,’ but corruption is everywhere,” said state Rep. Armando Martinez, D-Weslaco. “We hear about school board members taking bribes, and we hear about the recent corruption with our sheriff’s department; we need to combat those things, but we’re not the only ones with problems.”

Martinez joined mayors from across Hidalgo County this month in denouncing Abbott’s remarks.

Even as some corruption cases in the Valley come to a close, new allegations emerge.

Perhaps the most troubled of all is the tiny Hidalgo County town of Progreso. Last August, a federal grand jury indicted two brothers, one of them president of the local school board and the other the town’s mayor, and their father on charges of conspiracy, theft and bribery. An architect who allegedly paid the Vela family bribes to win contracts with the city and school district also was indicted.

Two state-appointed conservators have been assigned to oversee Progreso Independent School District.

In Donna, a town of 16,000 in Hidalgo County, three women working as politiqueras were indicted in January on charges they paid voters to cast ballots for Democratic candidates in the 2012 school board primary and general election.

Using personal networks to round up votes, the politiqueras told federal investigators that school board candidates and their campaign managers gave $40 to $125 to buy votes, and the women paid as little as $3 for some, while other votes were bought in exchange for beer, cigarettes or drugs.

On Jan. 1, weeks after the three women were arrested, Donna school board President Alfredo Lugo, 65, hanged himself in his home.

FBI spokeswoman Michelle Lee declined to comment on whether Lugo, a retired administrator from a neighboring school district who was re-elected in 2012, had been a target of the investigation. None of the school board candidates or their campaign managers were identified in the indictments.

“It was a lot deeper than just the politiqueras,” said Rachel Martinez, 57, an estranged second cousin of Lugo’s. “I’m sure his way of thinking was ‘What did they tell the FBI? How much do they know?’”

Days before Lugo’s suicide, Enrique Escobedo, 44, school board president of Brownsville ISD, the Valley’s largest school district, committed suicide in his home.

At the time of his suicide on Dec. 19, Escobedo, known in the community as “Dr. Escobedo” though he never received a medical degree, was director of American Firing Range, according to his LinkedIn profile.

His family has not publicly disclosed any information about what might have driven him to shoot himself.

Escobedo held a seat on the school board for the past decade and became board president in 2012. More recently, relations among some on the board had grown tense.

Brownsville ISD school board members Luci Longoria and Catalina Presas Garcia filed a federal lawsuit Jan. 14, accusing district Superintendent Carl Montoya and fellow board members Herman Otis Powers Jr., Minerva Peña, Hector Chirinos and Cesar Lopez, and school district counsel Baltazar Salazar of retaliation, libel, slander and favoritism in awarding contracts to American Surveillance, a company the lawsuit says is owned by Escobedo’s brother and that Escobedo was the vice president of. When Longoria and Presas asked questions or raised objections, Escobedo had them censured, according to the suit, which seeks $2 million in damages for violating their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit alleges Salazar and Escobedo chose Lopez, a purchasing administrator at Mercedes ISD, to fill a vacant seat on the Brownsville school board soon after the Mercedes board awarded a contract to American Surveillance.

The former assistant superintendent for finance and operations for Mission Consolidated Independent School District, Lucio Mendoza, was hired as Brownsville ISD’s chief financial officer after the Mission school board awarded American Surveillance a contract for $865,000, the lawsuit alleges.

Mission CISD records show the board approved contracts with American Surveillance on three occasions between January 2013 and June 2013 worth $1.3 million. Mendoza left Mission CISD on Sept. 5.

The defendants on the Brownsville school board have not yet responded to the lawsuit and attorneys for them did not return calls for comment.

Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, who was elected to an office still reeling from the conviction last year of his predecessor, made prosecuting corruption his first priority.

About the Brownsville ISD lawsuit, Saenz said, “It’s something we have been looking into and investigating for months and months.”

On Jan. 1, 2013, Saenz’s first day in office, he created the Public Integrity Unit, made up of federally trained investigators and his best prosecutors.

“Once the public sees the actions we are taking, slowly but surely the trust will come back,” Saenz said. “I feel I have to stand up for the good people of Cameron County. We’re not all bad.”

Last month, acting on evidence gathered by the unit, a Cameron County grand jury indicted several public employees on corruption charges, including a county commissioner on charges of abuse of his official capacity, tampering with government records, coercion of a public servant and obstruction or retaliation.

“When you get a culture like that going it can be hard to whip,” said Robert Prentice, a professor in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin who focuses on corporate governance and ethical decision-making. “They’ve sent a lot of governors to jail in Illinois and they’re still battling that same culture.”

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