The federal indictment against Criminal District Court Judge Manuel Barraza on charges of soliciting sexual favors and taking bribes begins by citing the Texas Constitution and Texas laws on bribery.

El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza’s office could have prosecuted Barraza but the U.S. attorney’s office is handling the case instead.

The same could be said for all of the public corruption cases the federal government has brought against El Paso officials and private citizens in the past two years.

Why?

Esparza said the report that something was amiss in Barrazas’ court “didn’t come to my office before it came to theirs, which is not to say it didn’t go to a state law enforcement agency.”

Although Esparza did not clearly state that the initial complaint or concern about Barrazas went to federal prosecutors first, that is where it wound up.

All of the cases going to Barraza's court are drug cases prosecuted by Esparza's assistant district attorneys. There is a federal connection because many if not most of them started off as federal cases involving people arrested coming across the international bridges with drugs.

“Neither the state nor the feds have exclusive jurisdiction,” Esparza said. “They would come to us only if only state law applied. But this can be heard in either courthouse.

“It would not be accurate to say that only they are doing it. Without telling you the details of the investigation, we were aware of it, and we provided assistance.

“I think a coordinated effort works. With Judge Barraza, there was coordination, and that ended up with the result we saw (Thursday).”

The FBI arrested Barraza Thursday morning at his home. He is now free on $10,000 bond.

Asked if allegations concerning Barraza were ever reported to his office, Esparza said, “I can’t tell you those details.”

Over the years, Esparza has come under criticism over the years for prosecuting so few public corruption cases and white-collar crime cases involving people with political connections.

He objects to any suggestion that he has ducked those cases.

But asked to name the cases involving public officials that his office has handled, Esparza remembered just two.

The first was his office’s unsuccessful prosecution of former County Commissioner Betti Flores several years ago for allegedly pocketing 18 campaign contributions amounting to more than $10,000.

The second, going back to the 1990s, was that of a former city representative, Manny Ramirez, who was removed from office when Esparza's office determined that he didn’t live in the district he was elected to represent.

Esparza reviewing Barraza’s court cases

In the Barraza case, Esparza last week initiated a review of about 100 cases that Barraza disposed of in his three months on the bench.

“We’re going to go back over those cases and make sure those decisions were appropriate,” Esparza said. “There were no trials and only a handful of contested cases. I’m not too concerned about the review, but we feel it is necessary.”

Many of those prosecutions would involve big dollar drug cases and big dollar defense lawyers, and the question is if Barraza took bribes and solicited sex from one defendant for the favorable handling of her case, were there other defendants?

The four-count indictment against Barraza charges that he “accepted bribes in the form of cash money and solicited sex and agreed to accept a bribe of engaging in sexual activity with women, including an individual who was, unbeknownst to the defendant, a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent acting in an undercover capacity, in exchange for his influence and exercise of discretion in his capacity as an elected judge.”

Barraza’s illegal solicitations allegedly began immediately after he was elected in November 2008, two months before he took office, and continued until February of this year.

After Barraza’s arrest Thursday, District Judge Patrick Garcia notified the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, which quickly suspended Barraza without pay.

In the interim Friday, the county’s judicial council – made up of the district and court-at-law judges – named former District Judge Peter Peca to serve in Barraza’s place.

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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30