Corruption Trial: Luther Jones, Betti Flores Expected On Stand

The defense and prosecution presented their opening statements Thursday in the joint public corruption trial of former El Paso District Clerk Gilbert Sanchez and political broker Luther Jones.

Jones also served as a state representative, county attorney and county judge in El Paso over the past 30 years.

Prosecutors told jurors the evidence will show that in 2004, Sanchez conspired to receive bribes from Jones, including $750 and a trip to Las Vegas.

In return, Sanchez helped steer a lucrative contract to digitize or scan county records to a company working with Jones, prosecutors said.

They added Jones was slated to split a third of the net profits with attorney Martie Jobe.

Jobe, who was once Jones’ chief of staff and was appointed by him county commissioner when Jones was county judge, has not been indicted in the investigation and the bid was never awarded.

Jones’ defense attorney and brother, Grant Jones, countered the prosecution’s claims in his opening statement.

“All of Mr. Jones’ activities were completely, completely out in the open,” he told jurors, adding Jones and Sanchez were friends long before 2004 and would often “pick up the tab” for one another.”

The defense said Jones will take the stand in his defense along with former El Paso County Commissioner Betti Flores.

Flores, considered a “cooperating witness” for the prosecution, pleaded guilty in a separate corruption charge in July of 2007 and has yet to be sentenced.

A federal grand jury indicted Jones and Sanchez in May of 2009. They initially faced five charges, but three were dropped in October of that year because Judge Frank Montalvo determined the statute of limitations had expired on two counts of bribery and one count of mail fraud.

Jones and Sanchez are being tried on two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and deprivation of honest services.

Once the nine women and five men of the jury were seated Thursday afternoon, they received their instructions from prosecutors along with an explanation of the case.

In court documents obtained by ABC-7, prosecutors explained “it is not necessary for the government to prove that the scheme actually succeeded, or that any official act was actually taken by the public official in the course of the scheme.”

“What the government must prove,” stated the government, “is that the defendants knowingly devised or participated in a scheme or artifice to defraud the public and the government of their right to a public official?s honest services through bribes or kickbacks.”

At the time of Jones’ indictment, his Co-Counsel Steven Peters told ABC-7, “Not only is whatever (Jones) has done not illegal, it’s not been against the public interest. He hasn’t done anything wrong in any sense.”

Trial continues Friday at 10:30 a.m.