34-year-old Antonio Reyes, a prosecutor based in El Paso, pled guilty to dismissing a criminal case in exchange for $500 cash.
As Breitbart Texas reported in March, Reyes was accused of conspiring and agreeing with other people to allegedly commit wire fraud. He apparently conducted the fraudulent activity in April 2011.
Reports state that Reyes, a district attorney for the El Paso District Attorney’s Office, worked on many domestic violence cases. He held the position for nine months, according to the El Paso Times.
Text messages sent from Reyes’ cellphone from March 31, 2011 to April 8, 2011 are listed in an indictment, and apparently reveal that he agreed to dismiss a domestic violence case in exchange for $500 cash.
The indictment claimed that Reyes “agreed to accept and accepted bribes in the form of cash money from persons known to the Grand Jury in exchange for…[Reyes’] preparation, filing, and support of Motion to Dismiss in criminal cases pending against those persons.”
The indictment went on to accuse Reyes of concocting “a scheme and artifice to defraud the County of El Paso, Texas, and the citizens of El Paso County, Texas living and voting in El Paso County, Texas of the intangible right to honest services of a public servant, to act and make decisions on behalf of the citizens of El Paso County, Texas, free from bribery, and to obtain money and property by false and fraudulent pretenses and representations.”
At this time, a sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled for Reyes.
This incident is only the latest in a string of Texas-based corruption cases involving public officials.
In early April, Breitbart Texas reported on Lupe Trevino, the former sheriff of Hidalgo County, Texas who admitted to accepting money from a drug trafficker to finance his re-election campaign. Trevino’s guilty plea came only 17 days after he stepped down from his position.
The payments received by Trevino were paid in cash and totaled between $70,000 and $120,000.
“In a place like south Texas that is economically disadvantaged in many areas, it’s increasingly difficult for some public officials to turn away from the large amounts of money involved in the drug business,” Breitbart Texas’ Contributing Editor Sylvia Longmire said of the case.
Reyes v. USA Indictment by BreitbartTexas
Follow Kristin Tate on Twitter @KristinBTate
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