Posted on 06/26/2005 6:44:36 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN — Sgt. Isreal Pacheco of the Texas Rangers believes recent revelations of possible vote-buying demand aggressive investigation of the influence of politiqueras on local elections.
"I’ve never talked to the news media so much, but I feel like this is an important case," Pacheco said. "The politiqueras are out there doing illegal things, and they’re interfering with the voting process, which to me is very important. And, they’re interfering with the elderly folks, and they’re taking advantage of them, and I think it needs to be looked at."
The case stems from covert audio and video recordings made by Othal Brand Jr., son of former mayor Othal Brand Sr. and manager of the elder Brand’s recent mayoral campaign.
In one of those recordings, which Pacheco said was made April 19, a man named Jose "Joey" Lopez, 22, of McAllen, is heard offering to sell 400 mail-in ballots for $4,000 to Brand Jr.
Brand Jr. and Pacheco have said the younger Brand was acting on Pacheco’s advice.
For 30 minutes on June 16, Pacheco said, he was satisfied with what was going to happen with the tapes once he turned them over to prosecutors. On that day, he said he told Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Teresa Navarro about those recordings.
"Thursday (June 16), Teresa Navarro had told me that (District Attorney) Rene Guerra was going to recuse himself and let the attorney general’s office come in and run the grand jury and handle the indictments and prosecution if there were any to be had," Pacheco said. "She asked me what I had, and I told her. And she said, ‘Well, give me all that.’"
Pacheco said he refused to give the information to the county district attorney and told Navarro he would give the recordings and other information to Sofia Ariste, assistant district attorney and grand jury supervisor, or to the attorney general’s office.
"Well, 30 minutes later, (Navarro) calls me and says that Rene Guerra has changed his mind and now he’s going to run the grand jury and he’s going to handle this investigation," Pacheco said. "You can draw your own conclusion."
Pacheco said Monday that the Texas Rangers had concluded their investigation and would turn over their investigative materials to the Hidalgo County district attorney.
Guerra said Navarro understood that his objective was "to be as independent as possible and as neutral as possible, and so I don’t know where she got the mistaken impression that we would turn it over to the AG. We had asked the AG to help us on things that I felt would be better handled by them instead of independent prosecutors, and they turned us down."
"Now Pacheco may want to send this to the AG, or he may want to send it to Timbuktu. I don’t know. Pacheco and I don’t talk. And if Pacheco has anything to say, I’m sure when the time comes, a grand jury will ask him to come forth and bring whatever he has on whatever investigations he might have been involved in."
Guerra said his decision to handle the grand jury himself has nothing to do with whether the Attorney General’s Office would do a good job.
"If I let somebody else come in, then I’m not doing my job as a DA," he said Thursday. "Initially, when we had been discussing all these messes, I had indicated it would be better if somebody independent could make the initial investigation, contacting the people, so we wouldn’t have to bring everybody before a grand jury, and it would be better if it was somebody outside the DA’s office, because of the obvious accusations that people are making and they’re always going to be making."
Navarro, for her part, denied telling Pacheco on June 16 that Guerra had said he was going to let the Attorney General’s Office oversee the grand jury.
"No, nobody else can oversee the grand jury. They don’t have the authority," she said. "The grand jury belongs to Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office. …
"I know that Mr. Guerra considered the Attorney General’s Office conducting the investigation. And I did tell Mr. Pacheco that the district attorney was open to allowing the AG to conduct the investigation, because it’s true, he was."
Pacheco said he complained to Navarro about the district attorney going easy on politiqueras when complaints surfaced in previous elections.
"This is what she said: ‘Mr. Guerra was just giving those people one more chance, but he’s assured me that he’s not going to give any more chances, that this is it, this is the final straw.’ So you can draw your own conclusion from that."
Guerra, meanwhile, is doubtful of being able to substantiate all of the allegations made in the complaints received by the Hidalgo County Elections Department.
"A lot of them are going to be unproven and unimportant," he said on Monday. "There will be some that are definitely worthy of investigation by a grand jury.
"Just because you complain about something happening in McAllen doesn’t necessarily mean that we can investigate it or that we can prove it. You can say somebody bought ballots for so many dollars per ballot. You can say it. Now, I doubt that a lot of time we will be able to prove it. It’s easy to say things; it’s more difficult to prove it."
The district attorney brushed aside any suggestions that Elvira Rios, the politiquera named in the April 19 audio recording and in many of the more than 30 complaints, had been involved in Guerra’s own political campaigns.
"I have seen her around political campaigns, let’s say, for the last 10, 12, 15 years, but I don’t recall ever having her as part of my campaign," he said. "But now if somebody might have hired her for me — not hired her for me but asked her to help me — I would know."
Guerra said he couldn’t afford to employ politiqueras even if he wanted to.
"I never have hired people to go door to door and solicit votes from the elderly, as far as I remember, as far as I know," he said. "I’ll give you a hundred dollars for every person that I paid to go out and get votes out of homes. I don’t believe in that. I’ve never done it."
The district attorney said those who do so violate the spirit of the nation.
"I don’t think that’s American at all," he said. "I think it’s disgraceful that people would do that."
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Marc B. Geller covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4445.
The district attorney said those who do so violate the spirit of the nation.
"I don’t think that’s American at all," he said. "I think it’s disgraceful that people would do that."
DA speaks with forked tongue!
LYING!
Politiqueras Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
You wouldn't think he'd qualify that statement. You pretty much know whether you ever did it or not.
Exactly. When people won't say straight-up that they didn't do something, you know they did it.
Hmmm---this reporter doesn't make much mention of political party affiliation. Now I wonder which way the people mentioned---and Hidalgo County in general---tend to lean?
Hidalgo County is a corrupt county run entirely by Rats, as are all the south Texas border counties. They are not as corrupt as their Mexican counterparts, but that's simply because the FBI usually busts them after awhile.
Othal Brand Sr. and Jr. are Republicans!
Heh. South Texas Dim politics and politicians are an anachronism. They're pulling a rear guard action that will eventually go the way of the dinosaur IF people like this Ranger will only keep the pressure on. Maybe we could send a few of our Rangers to Chicago and other interesting locations once they're done here?
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Now I didn't know that. Did a switch take place, like with Carol Keeton XXX YYYY ZZZZ?
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