Sheriff denies covering for his son, a police officer, during bust

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño, shown in 2007, said he might have acted differently with the anti-drug Panama Unit had he known what he knows now. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño, shown in 2007, said he might have acted differently with the anti-drug Panama Unit had he known what he knows now. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Sheriff denies covering for his son, a police officer, during bust 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

McALLEN — As federal investigators began to tighten their noose around a corrupt Hidalgo County anti-narcotics unit last year, at least three incidents might have tipped off Sheriff Lupe Treviño that his deputies, and maybe even his son, were involved in something illegal.

But what Treviño made of those red flags at the time depends on who's telling the story.

Treviño denied any wrongdoing Monday and said he handled each situation as best he could as he testified during his second day on the stand at the trial of Jorge Garza, a former deputy accused of playing a bit part in the drug conspiracy case that brought down the now-dismantled Panama Unit.

But throughout the day, Garza's defense sought to cast Treviño's actions as those of an official with something to hide: a man either willfully unaware of or actively trying to bury a growing scandal that would eventually lead to the conviction of eight other lawmen in the Rio Grande Valley, including his son, Jonathan, for accepting bribes and working in league with drug traffickers.

“You're making it sound like I was covering it up,” Treviño said, responding to questioning from Garza's attorney. “That was the last thing I was trying to do.”

During his testimony, Treviño maintained that it was only when he arrived Dec. 12 at the scene of what was described to him at the time as a Panama Unit drug bust that he began to suspect the task force might be involved in illegal activity. Only later, would he learn he had walked into the middle of an FBI sting operation targeting his son and some of his deputies.

His son, a Mission police officer and Panama Unit member, called him after finding GPS trackers in a load of cocaine the group had supposedly seized moments earlier, the sheriff said. To Treviño, the discovery meant one of two things.

“Either you're under investigation by the feds, or the cartels were tracking this load — as they've been known to do,” said the sheriff, recounting the incident.

But to hear prosecutors tell it, that incident began like many of the other crimes with which the Panama Unit would eventually be charged.

One of the group's longtime confidential informants, working undercover for the FBI, contacted the sheriff's son and requested his help moving a load of cocaine. Treviño said in an interview Friday that when he showed up , the informant was screaming hysterically.

“She was crying and screaming that the drugs belonged to the Sinaloa (Cartel),” he said. “And that they were going to kill her if we didn't get out of here.”

He packed the woman into a patrol unit, took her and the drugs back to his office, dismantled the GPS trackers and called the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency to ask if they knew about the situation.

Testifying Monday, Treviño acknowledged he had a “gut feeling” that the incident was part of a larger federal sting. But he insisted that his conversation with federal agents that day was the first time he learned about the case they were building against his son and the others, who were arrested hours later.

Garza's attorney, Lily Ann Gutierrez, repeatedly suggested in her questioning Monday that the sheriff's actions, including disabling the trackers, was unusual.

Asked by U.S. District Judge Randy Crane why he was so quick to assume agents were closing in, if he was unaware of the reasons for their investigation, Treviño replied: “Maybe I've been doing this too long,” he said. “Maybe I'm too cynical.”

Read the full story of the Dec. 12 incident at ExpressNews.com