Former EPISD administrator pleads guilty to fraud

Myrna Gamboa was hired in 2009 as Title I Director for the El Paso Independent School District by then-superintendent Lorenzo Garcia. Now she is considered a co-conspirator who schemed with Garcia to manipulate state test scores.

On Monday, Gamboa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States, in the courtroom of Judge David Briones.

Federal court documents stated:

“Myrna Gamboa and others did knowingly execute and attempt to execute a scheme and artifice with the intent to defraud the United States and with intent to obtain money and property by false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises in, that the defendant, Myrna Gamboa, and others did artificially inflate the EPISD state and federal accountability scores…”

Garcia pleaded guilty in 2012 to defrauding EPISD. He served time in a Pennsylvania prison until he was moved to a halfway home earlier this year.

Gamboa resigned in 2012.

As Title I Director, she led the program that federally funded districts to help at-risk students.

Gamboa schemed with Garcia to manipulate test scores at Bowie High School to meet accountability status with programs such as “No Child Left Behind”.

Garcia was mentioned in court documents only by the initials ‘LG’.

Gamboa provided false data to the Texas Education Agency and the Department of Education in order to receive Title I funding.

Other false data included student demographics by improperly causing students to withdraw from school, discouraging students from enrolling in school and denying students from entering EPISD from foreign countries properly earned credits.

Gamboa was also behind improperly reclassifying student from the tenth grade to the eleventh grade by changing passing grades to failing ones, and vice versa.

Gamboa is expected to be sentenced January 5 at 10:30am.