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Saturday, October 27, 2012

A Portrait of Maverick Official

By Jason Buch
mysanantonio.com

Borderland Beat
Maverick County Commissioner Rodolfo Heredia is accussed of smuggling money into the United States from Mexico after selling his truck to a Zetas associate.

Maverick County Commissioner Rodolfo Bainet Heredia was involved in a bid-rigging scheme, engaged in sex tourism and sold his truck to the presumptive leader of the Zetas drug cartel, an FBI agent said Tuesday during Heredia's detention hearing.

A federal magistrate judge ordered Heredia, 54, to be held without bail on cash-smuggling and money-laundering charges.

Heredia, who was arrested last week, has been indicted only on those charges, fairly minor in comparison to the allegations made during the hearing.

His attorney, John Convery, called the allegations made by the FBI agent a “character assassination.”

FBI agent Jarrett Doss testified that Drug Enforcement Administration agents investigating the Zetas in Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico, twin border cities downstream from Del Rio, began tapping Heredia's phone calls in 2009.

Because he's an elected official, the DEA handed the case over to the FBI, Doss said.

In 2011, Heredia sold his Ford pickup to an associate of the Zetas and had two associates smuggle the $13,000 paid to him back into the U.S., according to the indictment.

After the sale, agents were listening to Heredia's phone calls.

“Mr. Heredia said, ‘I'm selling my truck to ‘40,'' presumably the Zetas leader,” Doss said.

The agent testified that “40” is the call sign of Miguel Treviño Morales, a top-ranking member of the Zetas who is presumed to have taken over the cartel following the death of its leader earlier this month.

The U.S. Treasury Department forbids conducting business with the Zetas as an organization and Treviño Morales as an individual, Doss said.

The charges against Heredia don't warrant holding him without bond, Convery said.

The lawyer showed up at court with a stack of letters from Eagle Pass luminaries outlining why the longtime county commissioner should be released pending his trial.

The charges also shouldn't affect his role as an elected official, Maverick County Judge David Saucedo said.

“From what I can see, it's got nothing to do with his role as a county commissioner,” Saucedo said. “It's apparently a claim of money laundering from the sale of a private vehicle. I have spoken with the Texas Association of Counties. He's innocent until proven guilty, so we'll just have to wait until the case goes through the legal system.”

But Doss went on to outline allegations that went far beyond the charges against Heredia.

“Sources of information indicated that as part of Mr. Heredia's position as commissioner for Precinct 2, he's operating a bid-rigging and bribe kickback scheme,” the agent said.

And, with the courtroom full of Heredia's family and supporters, Doss alleged that the commissioner had committed sex crimes as well.

“There are various accounts of Mr. Heredia traveling to Mexico for sexual purposes, to have sex with underage people,” Doss said.

The agent testified that in wiretaps, agents heard Heredia make other references to the Zetas, and that his associates dealt with the organization as well.

On one occasion, Doss testified, one of Heredia's co-defendants was overheard speaking on the phone with a trafficker who boasted he had made someone “disappear into the mines.”

Prosecutors argued that because of his frequent travels to Mexico, Heredia constituted a flight risk, and because of his association with the Zetas, Heredia could be a threat to witnesses.

The commissioner's brother, Eagle Pass lawyer Claudio Heredia, said his sibling is a grandfather, a respected member of the community and isn't a flight risk nor a threat.

“Rudy is a gentle person. He's very kind to people. I've been approached by a lot of people after his arrest who say they're praying for him,” Claudio Herrera said. “He's respected. He's very well-liked. Of all my brothers, he's the least violent. He wouldn't hurt a soul.”

In his argument, Convery called Doss's testimony “a character assassination that has nothing to do with the charged offense.”

“There's a lot of mud-slinging in this very small case,” he said.

The judge didn't agree. Citing the allegations of Heredia's close association with the Zetas, Magistrate Judge Collis White ruled that Heredia, and co-defendant David Gelacio, 28, be held without bond.

A third defendant, Jose Luis Aguilar, 62, is scheduled to have a detention hearing Friday. All three face up to 20 years in prison.

22 comments:

  1. Good,now he can have sex in prison with adults.

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  2. Mr. Heredia is not the only Maverick County official involved in these shady activities. More will be exposed soon...

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  3. you forgot to mention his relationship with the Mexican Consul Ricardo Santana and his special visit from him

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  4. I beleive there is an international law on the books about people traveling to foreign countries to engage in sex with children. Why hasn't he been charged with violating that law yet?

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  5. If put to the streets surely he is a dead man walking.

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  6. In reality these types of officials are far more dangerous than street thugs as they can pull the strings in big government to make these criminal activities fly under the radar so they think. A elected man who is under this scrunity should face far greater punishment than the average man. Selling his truck to 40? really?? boasting about it? bye bitch

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  7. What a corrupt idiot. These locos are the ones that have always given south Texas a black eye.

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  8. do the border towns still have "boys-towns"??? those are cray ass places?? i was wondering if they are still there since all the shit thats been going down for the past 6 or so years.....

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  9. Authority's should of kept phone-tapping for a bit longer....very silly move,whens they have fuck all on him!!!

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  10. just ask your mother about those (boys town) places, thats where you were concieved. moron!

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  11. Kill him the only good zeta is a dead one. El Chapo will wipe the Zetas off the face of Mexico.

    Zetas M.O.= kill innocent people, kidnapping, extortion & then drug trafficking

    Sinoala M.O. = drug trafficking & kill zetas

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  12. Well, when he gets his ass thrown in the state or federal penitentiary with a bunch of big old convicts doing life sentences he is not going to be smiling like that, or may be yes, he is going to be happy with what he is going to get.

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  13. Well first of all Sinaloa or CDS isn't one cartel they are 3 but due to the deep sinaloense pride, they all called CDS. El mayo is a lot more peaceful in my opinion being from mazatlan, but I know you mean chapo and he is a dog who is greedy and will kill anyone hindering 1$ from him. Also zetas control Texas, these men HAVE to have relations with 40 to keep peace in Texas. If these men don't shake hands the day politicians on this side say hey "we don't negotiate with terrorists" bodies are going to drop heavy. Zetas not just 40 have a reputation to uphold, unlike El Chapo El Mayo, La Tuta and almost every other high ranking leader is Zetas do not care about US law enforcement. They are experts in terrorism. When they get scared they don't run they just kill more and more and more. A lot of people say either Zetas are not in US or admit it and say they can never bring that violence to the U.S they fail to realize that there's not 100 zetas in the u.s there's 1000s and 100s of 1000s of punk Americans wishing they can get recruited by them and dozens of gangs that want zeta money. Zetas are already organized in the US once they get the word there will be a horrible war/insurgency in Texas and California mainly. Start seeing the truth ignoring will not make it not true. Expose that Zetas are completely running California and Texas.get them before we have to bury our children

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    1. A war/ insurgency in california? Dude you are on better drugs than I can afford. I doubt they would ever try. If they did, we would kick thier asses to high hell! They would not last very long.

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    2. Texas abuses the right to keep and bear arms, for lack of better words. Let these silly cowards, hell any small nation for that matter, try to invade the great state of Texas. And watch as small militias assemble and rid these chumps with massive firepower. They got guns? I guarantee we have more.

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  14. "do the border towns still have "boys-towns???"

    Look up the street "Lucrecia Borgia" in Nuevo Laredo on google maps. That's the street that runs down the middle of the "zona de tolerancia" in Nuevo Laredo. Z-40, Z-42, Squirrel-Fink along with all the yo gabba gabba characters were conceived here. Z-40s mom washed cars here before hatching her first Satan on civilized society.

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  15. Ok first of all, yes Zeta wanna bes do exist here in the us but, 1: these are wannabes, dangerous because they all think they are scarface, no loyalties, cowards, idiots who end up getting caught and ratting their friends out. 2: Zetas would never have a control of texas, Texas is to proud to allow it to happen. Law enforcement here is to strong.

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  16. "Eagle Pass Luminaries" haha. There's no such thing. Eagle Pass is a political corrupt hive. I grew up there, and visit family, but I would NEVER raise my family in my hometown. I hope many more political figures get caught.

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  17. 10:46 PM
    "Expose that Zetas are completely running California and Texas.get them before we have to bury our children"
    Be cool man,your getting hysterical."Completely running Cali and Texas"little exaggeration maybe,i don't know,just a little?
    Christero

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  18. "do the border towns still have "boys-towns???"
    What are you talking about dip shit of course they are dying out,how can you say that?
    ~Baggy

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  19. "do the border towns still have "boys-towns???"
    Yes,i should know,i work in one,know what i mean sailor?
    570/Patt

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  20. Sinaloa nut huggers Chapo nuthuggers.why you jock the Cds so strong you really think there angels. Their cut-throat snitches. You think they're really helping Mexico???? C'Mon cut it out.Chapo with his greed is destroying Mexico & U.S.A... All the key Cds operatives have killed or captured.and it's not bad luck ..Chapo is no different than Z40!!!!

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