Two Charges Against Cobos Dropped, New Documents Show
Two of three charges against Anthony Cobos have been dropped.
Prosecutors today filed a superseding indictment in the ongoing public corruption investigation.
Cobos and Lorenzo Aguilar are charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and the deprivation of honest services.
The charges of actual mail fraud, plus mail fraud and deprivation of honest services are no longer on the document.
In addition, County Commissioner Dan Haggerty, identified by his initials in the initial indictment appears to have been removed from the document.
ABC-7 reporter Darren Hunt broke the story that Haggerty’s attorney, Ray Gutierrez, was asking prosecutors to remove the reference to Haggerty from the indictment.
An 11-page indictment filed back in mid-December mentions Cobos, Haggerty and others, but an an indictment that supersedes that indictment was filed at 9:15 a.m. Thursday.
Haggerty was accused in the previous indictment of taking tickets to an NCAA Tournament suite at the Alamodome in San Antonio in March of 2007 in exchange for favorable votes on the Commissioners Court.
Last week gutierrez showed me what he said was evidence that Haggerty, a 17-year commissioner never took those tickets, which were valued at $10,000.
Gutierrez said Haggerty was out of the country at the time attending his nephew’s wedding. Both were critical of the FBI at a news conference held about 5 p.m. Thursday.
“Whenever one of these indictments falls, everybody goes, ‘Oh, I’m innocent. I’m innocent. … I didn’t do anything wrong.’ And you know how well that goes over,” Haggerty said. “Whenever there’s smoke, there is generally a fire, and I was just amazed at the stuff they were throwing at me. I don’t know what mental anguish is, but whatever it is, I think I went through it.”
Portions of the full superseded document have been redacted. Two charges have been dropped, but it’s not clear what information might remain in the portions of the indictment that remain sealed.
