Posts Tagged ‘Donna (town)’

Donna ISD Update

Wednesday, September 9th, 2015

Hey, remember Donna ISD down in the Rio Grande Valley? You know, where the school board president committed suicide over a vote-buying scandal that followed hot on the heels of a bribery and graft scandal?

Turns out that there’s no end to the school district’s corruption.

“Last year, school officials failed to account for more than $1 million in missing funds. Marking the third consecutive year of unbalanced books, the district’s chief financial officer was removed — and reassigned as director of accounting.”

Snip.

Perched near the Mexican border, Donna schools serve a poor, heavily migrant community where public funds are coveted.

“Everyone is employed by the school district, the city or the county. It’s all about contracts and which friends get the bids,” Rio Grande Valley activist Maricela De Leon told Watchdog.org.

To hammer out those contracts, the board hired Robert J. Salinas, a convicted felon who served federal prison time for money laundering. Salinas now enjoys a $300,000 annual retainer and bills at $250 per hour. In May, Salinas charged the district more than $33,000, according to Breitbart Texas.

All this follows an attempt to oust superintendent Jesus Reyna over an alleged sex scandal.

And two weekends ago, Donna ISD Police Supervisor Ambrosio Francisco Limon was arrested for getting into a fist fight over a soccer game.

Sounds like state officials should take a close look at how Donna ISD does business…

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Posted in Crime, Democrats | 1 Comment »

Rio Grande Valley Corruption Watch

Tuesday, July 21st, 2015

Been a while since I took a look at the last region of Texas where Democrats still wield political power: the Rio Grande Valley. What’s going on down there these days?

Would you believe…corruption?

The Rio Grande Valley is considered the most corrupt area in the country, according to the latest statistic from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Valley has the highest number of federal public corruption convictions. In 2013, 83 cases received guilty verdicts or pleas. The FBI since launched their anti-corruption task force.

Let’s look at a few examples, shall we?

  • A look at vote buying in the valley:

    They’re called politiqueras — a word unique to the border that means campaign worker. It’s a time-honored tradition down in the land of grapefruit orchards and Border Patrol checkpoints. If a local candidate needs dependable votes, he or she goes to a politiquera.

    In recent years, losing candidates in local elections began to challenge vote harvesting by politiqueras in the Rio Grande Valley, and they shared their investigations with authorities. After the 2012 election cycle, the Justice Department and the Texas attorney general’s office filed charges.

    “Yes, there is a concern in which the politiqueras are being paid to then go and essentially round up voters and have them vote a certain way,” says James Sturgis, assistant U.S. attorney in McAllen.

    In the town of Donna, five politiqueras pleaded guilty to election fraud. Voters were bribed with cigarettes, beer or dime bags of cocaine. In neighboring Cameron County, nine politiqueras were charged with manipulating mail-in ballots.

    Funny how much of that voter fraud Democrats claim doesn’t exist there is. (Hat tip: Push Junction.)

  • From the same series: How the drug trade turns good cops bad, focusing on Jonathan Treviño, former head of a Hidalgo County narcotics squad who’s now doing 17 years in prison
  • Still another piece from the same series: “Jonathan Treviño’s father, Lupe, who was Hidalgo County’s powerful and popular sheriff, is serving a five-year prison term for a separate conviction. He admitted taking $10,000 in illegal campaign contributions from a drug trafficker known as The Rooster, with ties to the Gulf Cartel.” Plus an estimate that 20% of the border’s economy is based on drugs. NPR guesses this estimate is too high; I would guess it’s probably low.
  • Speaking of which: “The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office blocked auditors from investigating whether or not former Sheriff Lupe Treviño’s administration allowed county workers to fraudulently report they worked extra hours — and rack up so-called ‘comp time’ they could spend campaigning for him.”
  • And this was at the direction of former Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Jose Padilla, who “himself pleaded guilty to working with a Weslaco-based drug trafficker named Tomas ‘El Gallo’ Gonzalez, talked about the time card tampering allegations during a videotaped interview with anti-corruption activists.”
  • “Two former Hidalgo Housing Authority officials have plead guilty to bribery this afternoon. Sixty year-old Susana Mungia and 53-year-old Lubina Pedraza both admitted in Federal court to have engaged in a bribery scheme, after they had solicited and received money in exchange for allowing people to skip the waitlist and immediately obtain housing assistance.
  • “A Starr County justice of the peace facing bribery and cocaine charges has been forced off the bench until further notice, state officials ordered Monday. The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered Salvador Zarate suspended without pay until further notice, according to court documents. Zarate, 62, the Place 3, Place 1 justice of the peace, is accused of taking $500 to lower two defendants’ bond on Christmas Eve.”
  • “The Indian Lake Police Chief John Chambers was arrested [in February] on 14 counts of tampering with governmental records.”

    • These are only the stories that have caught my eye this year…

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Texas | No Comments »