In court, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agent Jonathan Jergins described the undercover operation as an open-and-shut case: the bartender served a teenager beer, end of story.

He said he recalled the details of the sting clearly — right up to the point when it became evident that it was the agent himself who was getting stung. Now, Jergins is being investigated by the alcoholic beverage agency’s internal affairs department, and a district attorney is reviewing his conduct.

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The operation unfolded on a September evening in College Station. Jergins and a partner had targeted Rebel Draft House, a popular bar on the edge of the Texas A&M University campus. The plan was to bust bartenders serving underage customers.

TABC typically conducts two types of undercover sting operations. Sales to an intoxicated patron stings can be deceptively complicated. Undercover agents must personally observe the offending sale, as well as prove a customer is so drunk that a bartender could not help but notice. In recent years, bars have successfully used security camera footage to argue a patron tagged by a TABC agent as grossly intoxicated was not visibly drunk.

For subscribers: Bars turn to security cameras to fend off Texas booze police

By comparison, sales to minor stings are simple. When a plainclothes agent observes a bartender serve his teenaged accomplice, the case is effectively made. The vast majority are uncontested and quickly settled.

The bar was crowded with families for Aggie parents weekend. Jergins was accompanied by two teenaged girls TABC hired for the evening. “We try very hard to use very youthful-in-appearance minors to be able to make it that much more obvious that that minor should not be sold alcohol,” Jergins explained later.

As Jergins stood behind her, one of the girls, a 17-year-old wearing a maroon A&M shirt and jeans, ordered a beer. The agent said he watched bartender Allen Frick check her driver’s license, yet “the bartender poured the drink out of the beer tap and served the alcoholic drink to the minor.”

Caught in the act, Rebel’s owners accepted the equivalent of a warning against their state license to sell alcohol. Frick, meanwhile, was criminally charged for giving the teen a beer. He faced a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Frick’s attorney, Craig Greening, said the Brazos County attorney quickly offered a deal — a fine, probation, community service hours. Yet the bartender balked. Despite the TABC agent’s report, Frick insisted Jergins wasn’t telling the truth about what actually happened that night.

Stingee becomes a stinger

Frick agreed he’d checked the girl’s ID and saw she was underage. He said he explained that she was too young for him to serve her.

Yet, he continued, he’d also observed an older man standing next to her - agent Jergins — and so asked if it was her father. “And she looks at him; and she nods like this and says ‘Yeah.’"

In Texas, bars can serve minor children alcohol so long as it “is in the visible presence of the minor’s adult parent.” Frick’s manager had mentioned the law before that evening’s shift, he recalled — “since it was parents' weekend and there were a lot of parents out, that it was legal to give the drink to the parent as long as I don't hand it directly to the minor.”

In other words, if Frick gave the beer to the teen’s parent, and the parent gave it to her, there was no violation. And he remembered it was Jergins he gave the beer to. “I said, ‘There you go, sir’… I kept watching to make sure that he grabbed it.”

Even better, Frick had proof.

Greening, Frick’s lawyer, said although he encourages bars to install security cameras, many don’t because of the cost. Rebel’s footage from that night quickly debunked the TABC agent’s version of events. After pouring the beer, Frick slides it toward the TABC agent. Jenkins picks it up, turns and hands it to the girl. They then walk away together.

Greening, a former prosecutor who represents bar employees, concedes the easy call would’ve been to send the footage to Brazos County prosecutors, who presumably would drop the charges after seeing TABC’s agent had used false information to charge Frick.

Instead, he decided to conduct a sting of his own.

‘It wouldn’t have happened that way’

Greening considered it payback. “Over the years, I’ve heard so many complaints from bars that TABC makes cases, but they’re not real cases,” he said. “We think they lie.”

Hunter Shurtleff, who has represented College Station bars and restaurants for 15 years, said he, too, felt TABC agents had unfairly brought cases against local bars, particularly in sales to intoxicated patron stings. “There’s a lot of problems with their enforcement,” he said.

So “When I saw the video,” Greening said, “I thought, ‘The chickens have come home to roost.’” Unlike prosecutors, defense attorneys don’t have to turn over all their evidence. He kept the video secret.

The trial was November 28. Questioned by assistant county attorney Kathryn Bradley, Jergins stated that after Frick poured the beer, his teenager “took the drink off the bar and then handed me the alcoholic drink.”

Greening questioned the agent next. “It would have been against policy for you to receive the beer from [Frick] and then give it to [the teenager], is that right?”

“Well,” Jergins answered, “it wouldn’t have happened that way.”

But if it had, “that would be illegal, right?”

Jergins: “The way you’re describing, yes, sir.”

Greening: “That’s against the law. It’s called making alcohol available to a minor, right? ...You can receive up to a year in jail?”

Jergins: “And a $4,000 fine, yes, sir.”

Greening unveiled the video. By his watch, the jury took about 20 minutes to return with its not guilty verdict.

Chris Porter, a spokesman for TABC, said the agency has opened an internal investigation into Jergins’ inaccurate testimony. (Due to the pending investigation, he added, Jergins could not comment.) Brazos County District Attorney Jarvis Parsons said his office was reviewing the case to see if it merits prosecution.

Brazos County Attorney Rod Anderson, whose office prosecuted the case, said he was reluctant to say Agent Jergins lied. “Obviously what happened is different from what was described in his report,” he said. “Yes, he misstated the transaction that took place. But we felt it was nothing intentional.”

To Greening, it’s a distinction without much of a difference. He understands it’s just a bar and a beer, not a death penalty case. But, he said, it matters when police at any level can’t be trusted.

“Were it not for the video,” he pointed out, “my client could have been a convicted criminal.”