Evidence list against Hidalgo's Handy includes recordings, campaign finance records

WESLACO — On paper, Roxann Garcia appeared to be a model government employee.

Hired as a maintenance worker in 2001 for Hidalgo County’s Precinct 1, she received a promotion after three years of service and was even recognized by her boss as “Employee of the Month” in September 2006 for her contributions.

The only problem, prosecutors say, is that she never actually did any work for the county.

Now, the awards given to Garcia during her four years on the county payroll are expected to become part of the criminal case against her employer, Commissioner Sylvia Handy.

As federal prosecutors unveiled their evidence list last week for a trial scheduled to begin next month, those accolades are just one of a few surprises listed among their planned exhibits.

Among them: Payments made from Handy’s campaign funds to one of her alleged conspirators and several recorded conversations between Handy and her top Precinct 1 administrators.

But what those items have to do with any of the specific charges the commissioner faces remains a mystery to her defense attorney Al Alvarez.

“I’m not sure that any of that stuff is relevant,” he said. “The fact remains that this case is about harboring illegal aliens.”

CAMPAIGN CASH

FBI agents arrested Handy and her husband in April 2009 on charges of conspiracy, harboring illegal immigrants and tax fraud. But since then prosecutors have made accusations of further wrongdoing, including allegations that Handy paid a group of undocumented workers by giving them jobs with the county under false names.

Investigators believe the women used the name “Roxann Garcia” — and five other identities — to make them appear eligible for county employment.

Although the women never performed any government-related job duties, they collected a paycheck, retirement benefits and vacation time amounting to more than $200,000 in taxpayer funds from 2001 to 2007, court documents allege.

Prosecutors plan to present a birth certificate and Social Security card linked to a woman named Roxann Garcia, according to the evidence list. But with one exception, they have not said publicly whether Garcia or any of the other names used by Handy’s household employees belonged to actual people.

From 2005 to 2006, Eloisa Andrade Uriegas, a 58-year-old McAllen school district employee, loaned her identity to one of Handy’s alleged servants — Maria de los Angeles Landa De Hernandez — to land her a job within the precinct. According to court filings, Uriegas went so far as to obtain a duplicate driver’s license so that Hernandez could more easily cash the county checks issued to her.

Both women pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in May. But thus far it has remained unclear what motivated Uriegas to participate in Handy’s alleged scheme.

On the evidence list released last week, though, government lawyers cite five payments Handy made to Uriegas from her campaign fund between 2003 and 2007 — a period that overlaps the time Hernandez was borrowing her identity.

In total, Uriegas took home $4,300 from Handy’s campaign coffers, though prosecutors have not yet said whether they believe those payments were made for actual campaign work or as compensation for her help to Hernandez. All but one of those checks were cut in non-election years.

The Hidalgo County Elections Department only maintains campaign finance reports for county elected officials for the past two years and did not have copies of the documents Handy filed during the period she was paying Uriegas.

RECORDINGS

Recorded conversations, too, appear to play a prominent role in prosecutors’ trial strategy.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel C. Rodriguez already relied heavily on recorded discussions between Handy and her household help in his efforts late last year to have the commissioner’s bond revoked amid allegations she tried to intimidate government witnesses.

During a Dec. 1 hearing, he played recordings of Handy discussing the ongoing investigation, in which she appeared to be coaching them on what to tell agents.

“The two bottom-line issues are that nobody ever worked here and got paid by the county and that I didn’t know anything,” she was heard saying in the recordings.

On his evidence list for the March trial, Rodriguez has listed several more recorded conversations among Handy, her household staff and her Precinct 1 employees, suggesting one or more of them may have been wearing a wire for FBI investigators.

Among those listed on the recordings are her former chief of staff and current county commissioner candidate Joseph Palacios, Precinct 1 administrative assistant Isabel Cordova and human resources director Mary Ybarra.

Ybarra filed a lawsuit against the county last year accusing Handy of firing her from her job after the commissioner found out Ybarra was working with federal agents.

A judge later threw out those claims, holding that the allegations were more suited to a criminal investigation.

The recorded conversations took place from March to July 2007 and cover a period in which the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office was also looking into the commissioner’s hiring practices.

The fact that so many top Precinct 1 administrators appear on the evidence list suggests Handy had some discussions with them relating to the matters in her indictment, but does not necessarily mean they were involved in or had any knowledge of her alleged misconduct.

“We don’t know what the judge is going to do with respect to those recordings. I imagine some will come into court and some will be thrown out,” Alvarez, the defense attorney, said. “All that she’s ever asked for is a fair trial.”

Handy has maintained her “not guilty” plea since her arrest and vowed to fight the charges in court.

If convicted, she could face up to 10 years in prison.