A Texas border politician has pleaded guilty for her role in helping set up and run a network of illegal casinos in the South Texas town where she held office.
On Monday morning, Leticia Hernandez Garza aka Letty Garza appeared before U.S. District Judge Nelva Ramos and entered a guilty plea to the charge of aiding and abetting an illegal gambling establishment.
The charges against Hernandez Garza stem from more than a year-long undercover investigation that led to a grand jury handing down an indictment against her on March 23, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed.
Authorities investigated a series of underground casinos in Falfurrias, Brooks County, and on May 31, 2015, carried out a large simultaneous raid on all of the casinos in the city.
Breitbart Texas was in Falfurrias last year when federal agents and Texas state troopers stormed into the city and raided almost a dozen casinos throughout the city. According to prosecutors, authorities seized more than $4.9 million. The seizures were made not only from the game rooms, but also from the homes of game room owners who had been working with Hernandez Garza.
Hernandez Garza served as the Mayor Pro Tem of the City of Falfurrias. While small in size and about 80 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border, Falfurrias has become a hot zone in the ongoing illegal immigration debate. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, human smugglers force illegal immigrants to trek for miles in an effort to circumvent the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint located just south of the city. The dangerous trek has led to hundreds of illegal immigrant dying along the way. In other cases, human smugglers routinely rape women and hang their clothes in what have become known as rape trees.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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