Amount Of Sealed Documents In Corruption Case Concerns Legal Expert

This week, local businessman Adrian Pena admitted to bribing elected officials in two separate cases.

But it is the amount of information being sealed in other corruption cases in El Paso that is concerning a legal expert.

There are still many more who have been indicted and are either waiting to go before a judge or go to trial.

But since most of the court records have been sealed, not much is known about the details of each case.

This week, the public got an unexpected, inside look into how the government is handling the public corruption investigation – by paying some of their informants.

How many informants there are and how much of the public’s tax dollars is being spent to pay them is all sealed from the public.

“The fact that informants are being paid is a matter of concern not only to the defendants, but to the general public,” said first amendment attorney and a board member of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, Joe Larsen.

He says revealing some documents can pose a risk to the ongoing investigation, by exposing cooperating witnesses but, “I do believe the sealing is excessive here.”

Federal Judge Frank Montalvo’s decision to seal most of the documents in El Paso’s corruption investigation has raised serious questions about the public’s constitutional right of access to information.

“We can’t have a secret docket. If the court’s going to do something, then we need to get notice and give an opportunity to the public and the press to be heard before they’re excluded,” said Larsen.

He says Judge Montalvo is sealing more information than he has to.

Larsen says any names of concern could just be redacted or blocked, “It would not require a complete sealing of the transcript.”

So far, more than a dozen have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Meanwhile, the public’s unaware of the kind of deals they may be getting.

“That’s one of the reasons the first amendment proceedings be open, so the public can be informed as to how their government is operating, prosecutors are operating and how the courts are operating,” said Larsen.

ABC-7 called Judge Montalvo, for comment and his court clerk said he doesn’t comment on pending cases.

The U.S. Attorney’s spokesman also said they had no comment on pending litigation.