Uncovering corruption in Hidalgo County
By G. Romero Wendorf
By definition, newspapers are rumor mills. People drop anonymous notes through the mail slot on our office front door, or they phone in anonymous tips on phones that don’t show up on the Caller ID.
Depending on the “anonymous tips,” The Advance News Journal follows up on them or lets them lay dormant. If the anonymous tip, for example, alleges that some elected officialor public administrator is having an affair with a subordinate, typically for obvious reasons, that one’s not going to be touched. At least not by this newspaper. Call in the slander sheet if you want to spread gossip. Or since Facebook has become so popular, post the allegation there in anonymous fashion. I’ve seen that go by. And shame on them for doing so without any facts to back it up. You’re going to cause some trouble with someone’s marriage just because there’s a rumor floatingaround? Without any real proof to back it up?
And besides, what sort of public-information (open records) request could any legitimate newspaper filewith city hall seeking out charges of adultery?
“We are requesting all city documents related to the affair between X and X?”
As if city hall is going to have a file on that
Or how about this common tip:
“(So-and-so) is getting paid money under the table to vote in favor of giving this particular (city/county/school district job) contract to (this particular vendor).”
Number one, if the money’s flowingunder the table, there’s no open records to request. And it’s typically paid in cash, because if a crime is indeed being committed, no one wants to leave a paper trail. Unless you’re former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño, then it’s possible you’ll accept a check and put it into your campaign account, even though it’s from a known drug dealer.
By the way, speaking of rumors, there’s one floating around these days that the feds are bringing Treviño back to McAllen in the near future from his Pensacola, Fla., prison camp to testify before a Grand Jury about the July 2013 murder of singer Jesus “Chuy Quintanilla. Apparently, according to rumor, there’s been a break in the case. But rumors are as common as tortillas. And if I call the U.S. Attorney’s Office here in McAllen to seek info about the rumors, sure they’re going to comment on that. They’re always so talkative about ongoing criminal investigations. Especially to news reporters. They won’t admit it, but most of the people in federal law enforcement loathe the media, except when they can make use of them for their own benefit.
And number two, getting back to alleged bribery involving elected officials in the RGV, if there is payola going on – pay- to-play so I can go buy a new boat or condo or take mi novia on a vacation – typically only two people know about the crime: the person paying the money and the person receiving it. Doubtful either party is going to be willing to be interviewed on the record when a news reporter calls, seeking information – “Is it true that (so-and-so) is paying you a bribe to vote in favor of the city giving him the contract (for whatever)?
When one recent city scandal broke, I actually had someone ask me, in all seriousness, as if I were lying down on the job: “Did you know all of this stuff was going on (while it was happening)?”
As if I knew about it, but chose to do nothing about it. The answer was, yes, I had a clue that something illegal was afoot, but I had no way to prove it. Unlike the feds, I can’t get a warrant and raid one guy’s office, find incriminating evidence buried in his desk drawer, and then wire him up to collect secret recordings of him talking bribery with his co-horts inside a local restaurant.
And then, when it all hits the fan, and the feds reign in the conspiracy and sentence the participants, they give the two snitches who wore hidden wires a free pass and let them walk away relatively scot free, even though they actively participated in the bribery scheme. Doesn’t seem quite fair.
Late last year, the FBI launched…drum roll, please …the Rio Grande Valley Public Corruption Task Force, which is comprised of FBI agents, Texas Rangers, who will operate in concert with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security, and the Officeof Housing and Urban Development, just in case, presumably, one of the residents of a public housing unit might be smoking a joint.
The head of the joint task force, with a name straight out of Hollywood, Rock Stone, a career FBI special agent, told the San Antonio Express-News last year:
“We’re going after school boards, county commissioners, tax assessment offices, health care fraud, anywhere public money is received. There is an inherent public trust in those officesand they must be held to a higher standard.” Speaking about public corruption in the Rio Grande Valley, in a somewhat ironic twist, there is a document posted online at www.justice.gov, which has a breakdown of federal prosecutions for public corruption over the past decade. South Texas, which really involves the RGV as well as the Coastal Bend past Corpus Christi, numbers 356.
In D.C., the number is: 334. So with a little more effort inside Congress, maybe the lobbyists can help the public officials based there catch up with us here in South Texas. They’re only off by 22 crooked public officials. Certainly, not a wide gap to cover if the lobbyists dig in just a little.
Of course, Eastern Virginia, where a lot of D.C. politicos actually live, numbers 445.
So, when National Public Radio does a story about corruption here in the RGV, as it did last week, perhaps they can next move on to Eastern Virginia and bookend the story with public corruption in D.C.
By the way, according to the Express-News story, Rock Stone and his band of federal and state agents are “putting special emphasis on Hidalgo and Starr Counties.”
Forget that the former Cameron County DA and Cameron County sheriff were convicted of federal crimes as well as a state district court judge and a band of crooked lawyers based in Brownsville. Let’s instead focus on Hidalgo and Starr. With that three-story multi-million-dollar FBI HQ on the corner of McColl and Pecan, courtesy of taxpayers, protected by bunker-like security gates resembling Ft. Knox, there’s less miles to travel if they focus their attention on Hidalgo and Starr as opposed to Cameron. That expressway traffic headed east and west is a killer at rush-hour.
During his campaign for Texas Goober (governor), Greg Abbott helped us out here in South Texas by comparing the RGV scandals to third-world practices.
Obviously, the local chambers were happy with the publicity and praised Abbott for his love of the RGV.
Now, of course, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (based in Austin, not the RGV) is being investigated for violations of state security laws. Before becoming AG, while still a state rep, Paxton solicited clients for a friend’s investment firmwithout being registered with the state.
How should a state rep be expected to know state laws, after all?
He admitted said offense to the Texas State Securities Board, paid a $1,000 fine, AKA, chump change, and won his subsequent recent election last year as Texas’ newest attorney general, whose mission is to uphold state laws and the state constitution.
But a Texas Watchdog Group (can’t they just mind their own business?) just won’t let go. They pushed and pushed, despite two district attorneys turning down the case, until the Collin County DA, Greg Willis, said that the Texas Rangers should handle allegations that AG Ken Paxton violated state security laws, which is considered a first-degree felony if he’s found guilty of securities fraud.
Meanwhile, in his story with the SA Express-News last year, FBI Special Agent Rock Stone made it clear that public corruption here in the RGV (mainly Hidalgo and Starr counties) will not be tolerated, under his watch as the federal task-force supervisor.
“The public's perception is that the problem is inordinately grave and that it is worse here than other places. (Even though the figures cited earlier in this column clearly show that it is not.) We're being very vocal and very public about the fact that [public corruption] is wrong, it is immoral, and you're betraying the public's trust.”
Stone could be talking about D.C.
Meanwhile, here at The Advance News Journal, keep those anonymous tips pouring in. We do investigate them. It’s just that most of them lead nowhere. And unlike the feds, we can’t threaten people: Tell us what you know or else.