All but two elected officials in Crystal City, Texas have been arrested by the FBI on charges of bribery and helping an illegal gambling operator in exchange for favors. These elected officials include Crystal City’s mayor, the city attorney (who is also the city manager), the mayor pro tempore, one current city councilman, and one former city councilman.
Another current city councilman is being charged in another case involving the smuggling of Mexican immigrants.
From Think Progress:
“According to the Department of Justice indictment, Crystal City’s officials were accused of using ‘their official positions to enrich themselves by soliciting and accepting bribes from persons seeking to do business’ since February 2015. The city manager, William James Jonas, III, was accused of managing the bribery scheme, in which a contractor provided bribes worth more than $12,000 to city officials in exchange for a city contract and unfair advantages. Ngoc Tri Nguyen, a city councilmember, was accused of providing payment to Mayor Ricardo Lopez, ‘including $6,000 in exchange for various official acts from Lopez and Jonas.’ Nguyen was allegedly running illegal gambling rooms, as well.”
According to Joel Barajas, the sole remaining city councilman without an arrest warrant, Crystal City has about $2 million in unpaid bills and is facing bankruptcy.
Said FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs:
“While most public officials faithfully promote the interests of the communities they serve, today’s arrests should serve as a powerful reminder that officials who abuse their authority will be held accountable… Public corruption is one of the most insidious crimes confronting our communities today. It contributes to the cynicism we are seeing from members of the public who often feel as though all politicians are corrupt and the government does not serve the needs of those citizens who can’t pay for access to their elected officials.”
Robert Durbin, Jr., the U.S. attorney for San Antonio, said he hoped the indictment would help restore public confidence in local government. But he also acknowledged that his office could only do so much, considering that all of the Crystal City officials who were arrested will not immediately lose their seats. From ABC News:
“In the end, it falls back on the citizens to make the next decision on who they put in those offices, because that’s how the system works.”
Durbin is absolutely right. The actions of politicians — whether they be prosocial, like restoring communities, or illegal, like bribery and granting unfair advantages, falls back on the voters in most circumstances. We like to bitch about who does what at what level of government, but because elections are conducted on the basis of representative democracy, the men and women in charge only have their seats because of us.
Some of us vote them into office. Others don’t vote at all, which does not let them off the hook. They’re still complicit. Given the revelations about the Crystal City government, it is up to the people of Crystal City to make the change during the next city election.
Featured image by MediaPhoto.org, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
