Formal Ethics Complaint filed against El Paso Commissioner Veronica Escobar

Today, at 2:26 p.m., Stuart Leeds and I filed a formal ethics complaint against Commissioner Veronica Escobar. El Pasoans should no longer tolerate its politicians abusing their power and wrongfully using their public offices to threaten and bully those whom they perceive to be a threat to their power and future political ambitions. El Pasoans should never tolerate an offical blocking their access to their own courts. What follows is the text of the complaint.

June 10, 2009

El Paso County Board of Ethics
Kristine Moore, Chair

Re: Ethics Complaint against El Paso County Commissioner Veronica Escobar

Hand-delivered to Human Resources, 800 E. Overland Avenue, El Paso, Texas 79901 and a file-stamped copy obtained back by the writers of this letter

Dear Ms. Moore and Board members:

We, the undersigned, Stuart L. Leeds and Theresa Caballero, file this Ethics complaint against El Paso County Commissioner Veronica Escobar, as follows, to-wit:

Commissioner Escobar has violated the following provisions of the El Paso County Ethics Code and as such we would ask that you sanction her accordingly:

Section X: Political Activity

A. and B.

“No county official or employee shall utilize county equipment or supplies of any kind for political purposes.”

“No County official shall directly or indirectly use or threaten to use any official authority or any influence in any manner whatsoever which tends (2) to discourage, restrain, deter, prevent, interfere with or discriminate against any person who chooses to participate in political activities, an election campaign or fundraising effort.”

Commissioner Escobar violated the code on or about Wednesday, June 3, 2009 through June 9, 2009 in El Paso County, Texas, as follows, to-wit:

Commissioner Escobar has used her official authority and influence to discourage, restrain, deter, prevent and interfere with County Judge Anthony Cobos’ political activities. Commissioner Escobar wants to be El Paso County Judge and take over that position from Judge Cobos. She has used her authority and influence to interfere with his re-election campaign by making public comments on his request to have El Paso County pay his attorney fees in defending himself against the Ethics complaint Emma Acosta filed against him. To paraphrase the El Paso Times today: “that complaint boils down to this: “...and all that’s really there is a question:

Did Cobos rightfully or wrongfully release a copy of Acosta’s job application to her opponent in the recent election?”

This question was fully answered in Court, with Commissioner Escobar being present, on June 8, 2009, when El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez stated that Cobos released the copy of Acosta’s job application pursuant to a Texas Open Records Act request; that he did so in his official capacity as County Judge and custodian of the records and that he did so upon the expert legal advice of the County Attorney’s office that said the records were not confidential. Ms. Moore was present as well when this was testified to.

Despite this, Commissioner Escobar persists in making the following statements and threatening to conduct the following activities:

She has threatened to use her position as County Commissioner to 1) put an item on the County Commissioner’s Court agenda calling for a tabulation of expenses related to court proceedings stemming from Emma Acosta’s ethics complaint against Judge Cobos and 2) vote to support the proposition that Judge Cobos pay these expenses 3) threaten to make Judge Cobos pay for the costs of the litigation when, in fact, the costs of the litigation were run up by others, including Commissioner Escobar herself, at the County and not Judge Cobos and the litigation itself is the result of others at the County and not Judge Cobos all in effort to prohibit/threaten/ thwart etc. him from campaigning in the future for himself or others and to punish him for past political activities.

First of all, there would have never even been an Ethics complaint filed by Ms. Acosta but for Judge Cobos, correctly and within the scope of his employment, receiving expert legal advice from the County Attorney that the records he released were public and contained nothing confidential. Judge Cobos was under a legal duty, pursuant to Texas state laws relating to Open Records Requests, to release Emma Acosta’s employment records.

Secondly, the County Attorney’s office that gave Judge Cobos the advice he acted on then stated that they had a conflict of interest and could not participate at all and abandoned Judge Cobos. The County Attorney, Jose Rodriguez, then attacked Judge Cobos in legal proceedings. Judge Cobos never released the County Attorney as his legal counsel in this case or consented to this behavior.

Judge Cobos then was forced to seek legal advice and legal counsel elsewhere outside the County at his own expense.

Commissioner Escobar’s job is to use her votes in accordance with the law and to use her power blindly. She is to set aside personal bias and hatred and future political ambitions when exercising her authority. By threatening to use her vote to 1) encumber Judge Cobos with a debt and 2) to encumber him with a debt to the County which may prevent him from being eligible to hold his office or seek re-election and 3) to use her vote and position wrongfully to indebt Judge Cobos so as to weaken him politically so she can then run for his position is behavior singularly and collectively in direct violation of the ethics code. This is what the code was set up to prevent.

Commissioner Veronica Escobar has abused her position by using “County equipment and supplies” by intentionally driving up the costs of litigation associated with Acosta’s ethics complaint when she deliberately infused herself into the process by making herself a witness against Judge Cobos by swearing to an affidavit (On or about June 3, 2009 in El Paso County, Texas) that was filed in the case, and then using the offices of the County Attorney’s office to file a Motion to Quash her subpoena on her behalf (On or about June 8, 2009 in El Paso County, Texas) and then threatening to assess costs she deliberately ran up on Judge Cobos (On or about June 9, 2009 in El Paso County, Texas). The affidavit Escobar signed was produced by county equipment and paper paid for by the taxpayers. The Motion to Quash her subpoena was produced on county equipment and used county paper. These documents were produced by county employees. And if Escobar threatened Judge Cobos with costs referred to above during a Commissioner’s Court meeting, then she was using the equipment at Commissioner’s Court (computers, microphones, chair, dais, and all employee services that go into the running of Commissioner’s court). Escobar also stated that she will ask the County Auditor and the County Attorney to use their offices to give her an accounting of costs she is threatening to assess against Judge Cobos for allegedly participating in a political campaign. This is exactly in contravention of the El Paso County Code of Ethics.

Escobar’s actions are political, vindictive and part of her strategy to run for County Judge and to prevent Judge Cobos from participating in politics. They are part of her strategy to put a chilling affect on Judge Cobos and to prevent him from participating in his friends’ campaigns and to punish him for supporting the political campaign of Alejandro Lozano. Escobar’s behavior is exactly the kind of conduct that the Ethics Code was created to proscribe. (See Attachments: El Paso Times newspaper article and editorial).

Thank you for promptly investigating this complaint and sanctioning Commissioner Escobar. We look forward to hearing form you within ten working days of this letter as per XII D of the Code.


Respectfully submitted,




_________________________
Stuart L. Leeds, Complainant



_________________________
Theresa Caballero, Complainant