DONNA, Texas—The political witch-hunt started by a corrupt school board in this border city continues to fall apart exposing a series of conspiracies, fabricated scandals, and vendettas aimed at spending tax-payers money in one of the poorest districts in the nation.
The most recent blow to the embattled school district came late last week when a grand jury in Hidalgo County cleared the name of former teacher Carlo Cordova by handing down a no-bill as to the criminal charges filed against him by Donna ISD Police.
The decision by the grand jury confirmed in a way a series of articles published by Breitbart Texas that revealed that the charges against Cordova had been trumped up as part of a political maneuver to get rid of his father-in-law superintendent Jesus Rene Reyna.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, earlier this year board members in Donna ISD led by President Albert Sandoval moved to get rid of current superintendent Jesus Rene Reyna by claiming that he had tried to interfere with a criminal investigation surrounding Cordova–the move failed.
The now-refuted allegations were that Cordova had intimate relations in 2014 with an 18-year-old woman while she was a student at the school.
When that move failed, board members moved to terminate Reyna after Donna ISD Police Chief Roy Padilla carried out his own vendetta, targeting the superintendent and board member Ernest Lugo.
Padilla claimed that Reyna and Lugo had tried to bribe him and personally oversaw the case to have the two arrested. As reported by Breitbart Texas in August, the ploy also failed when a grand jury cleared the two men of any wrongdoing.
Despite the opposition by Reyna and Lugo, Sandoval and the board members on his side have been able to fire the board’s former law firm and hired a convicted felon as the district’s attorney.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, convicted money launderer Robert J. Salinas, the current attorney at Donna is charging $300,000 retainer and $250 per hour for a school district with only 15,000 students.
Another questionable move by the school board deals with a conference in Las Vegas that was not tied to education. The board travelled to see Hillary Clinton speak at a Hispanic leadership event; it was during that event that board member Tomasa “Tammy” Ramos ended up getting married.
The police chief at Donna ISD, Roy Padilla is the brother of former Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office Commander Jose Padilla who is serving a federal prison sentence for taking money from a Mexican drug lord.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.