Former Edinburg mayor takes the stand to explain
Beyond a reasonable doubt.
That’s what the trial of former Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina will come down to when all is said and done. Reasonable doubt.
In other words, can his attorneys convince the 12 jurors (11 women and one man) that any reasonable person would think that if they lived in say, Mission, Weslaco, or Pharr, that they could vote in an Edinburg municipal election as long as they had some tie to the city?
Either they worked in Edinburg, let’s say, or their grannie lived within city limits, maybe an ex-wife lived there? If they had any such tie to the city, based on Molina’s interpretation of election law, they could have voted for him in the 2017 Edinburg mayoral election. And they could have used that tenuous Edinburg address to list on either the voter registration form if they had never voted before, or on the changeof- address voter registration form if they were already registered to vote in another city.
That’s the narrative that Molina and his two attorneys, Carlos A. Garcia and Jaime Peña, are trying to weave.
At least that’s what Molina testified to on Tuesday, Aug. 23. This opinion piece mixed with some news is being written during the noon hour. Court reconvenes at 1:30.
The criminal trial began last Tuesday, Aug. 16, continued last Wednesday and Thursday before reconvening this Monday.
The state rested its case last Friday.
On Monday morning, Molina’s attorneys picked up the slack and called back a few of last week’s witnesses for re-cross-examination, like the sergeant from the Texas AG’s office who interviewed many of the people called by the state last week to testify.
In most criminal trials, the defendant never takes the witness stand. A good prosecutor can trip them up, get them flustered. The last thing their attorney wants is to call them as a defense witness in their own trial.
In the case of Richard Molina, though, after last week’s damning testimony from state witnesses, called by lead prosecutor, Assistant DA Mike Garza, the only real hope Molina had, some court observers thought, was to take the stand and try to explain his actions to the jury.
His testimony Tuesday morning, Aug. 23, mainly centered around his belief that he was doing no wrong signing up people to vote who didn’t live in Edinburg. They were mainly friends and family members who wanted to support him, he said.
He never thought he was asking anyone to commit a crime because he didn’t think it was a crime to vote in a city in which you don’t live. You could work in Edinburg, for example, live in Pharr, but use the Edinburg work address on your voter registration form.
This was never a problem before, Molina said, trying repeatedly to bring up names related to his political opponents, “Then I became mayor, and then it became a problem.”
According to the former mayor, this sort of quasi-residency deal had been going on for years. He had proof that his political opponents had done the same thing. He had checked with the state. What he was doing was okay, according to legal opinions he found on the websites belonging to the state secretary of state and state attorney general.
He had even taken several classes with the county with regard to signing up voters, he said, and nothing ever taught him that what he did in 2017 was wrong.
Call this an opinion piece, as opposed to a straight news story, but it’s Tuesday at noon, and I have to be back at the Hidalgo County courthouse by 1:30. Look for daily news updates and/or podcasts this week at anjournal.com.
I sat through two days of testimony last week, listening to one state witness after another describe, under oath, how the former mayor had talked them into voting in the 2017 city’s mayoral election. These were people, mainly, who were either close friends or family members related to Molina.
The thing about them that stuck out the most was – these are credible people. It’s not as if they were convicted felons with a meth problem living on the street. They were all saying the same thing: they voted in the 2017 Edinburg election because they were either asked to do so by Richard Molina, even though he knew they didn’t live inside city limits, or they felt intimidated to do so. When they would bring up the residency issues, some said, Molina would tell them, “Don’t worry about it.” He would then help them fill out a voter registration form.
One after another they took the stand and said basically the same thing: “I did it.” Meaning, they committed voter fraud, either knowingly or unknowingly.
Tuesday, Aug. 23, Molina testified that he had never forced or intimidated anyone into voting. They had all come to him, asking how they could help him win. If they weren’t already registered to vote, he’d help them do that. If they didn’t live in Edinburg, no problem, we can find a way. He would never knowingly ask or encourage anyone to commit a crime, he said.
For those who said they weren’t sure if it was okay for them to vote in an Edinburg election even though they lived in Mission, for example, the lead prosecutor in this case, Mike Garza, would always come back with the same scenario: Do you think it’s okay for someone from Russia to vote in a U.S. election? “No.” Do you think it’s okay for a Florida resident to vote in a Texas election? “No.” Do you think it’s okay for a Mission resident to vote in an Edinburg election? “No.”
Molina’s two attorneys, Carlos A. Garcia and Jaime Peña, tried to impeach the state’s witnesses, but they seemed to have little to no success. Almost all of the witnesses were nervous, but they all said the same thing basically: I am here to tell the truth. Nothing coming from the defense attorneys could get them to waiver.
On the witness stand Tuesday, Molina described most of last week’s witnesses for the state as either former friends or relatives who had been forced to testify under threat of arrest.
Garza objected to that narrative Tuesday more than a few times, and one could almost see him biting at the bit to get to the cross. Get to the cross-examination when he could finally get to ask Molina his own set of questions.
The Case Unfolds
It was made obvious from the trial last week that if you’re caught up in an alleged web of deceit, and a Texas Ranger comes knocking on your door, asking for information, or someone from the Texas AG’s office shows up on your doorstep, as was the case with the Molina investigation, it would behoove you to cooperate and speak the truth.
If you don’t cooperate and tell the truth, based on the evidence presented before you, you will most likely be indicted, charged with a crime, and arrested. If you do cooperate, sure, you may have to testify in court on behalf of the state, and possibly face the defendant whom you once called friend or compadre, but you’ll probably avoid arrest and prosecution for, in the case of Richard Molina, voter fraud.
Molina faces one count of engaging in organized voter fraud and 11 counts of illegal voting. If convicted, the former mayor/former city police sergeant faces five to 99 years behind bars.
From the beginning, when this case first broke April 25, 2019, Molina has proclaimed the case against him nothing more than a witch hunt mounted by his political enemies.
Shortly after winning the mayoral seat in 2017, Molina, who represented the city council majority at the time, ended a six-figure insurance contract with Mary Alice Palacios, aunt to Hidalgo County District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez. In the 2017 race, Palacios had campaigned for Molina’s opponent, former Edinburg Mayor Richard Garcia.
Palacios got to work. She put together a file, naming names, addresses, and sent them to the Texas Secretary of State. After a review, the “Mary Alice file” was sent to the Texas AG’s office, where it was handed off to the election fraud division. A former retired major with the DPS, now a sergeant with the AG’s office, began working the case, matching names to known addresses of the names cited by Palacios. He used things such as a driver’s license, utility bills, vehicle registration forms, property taxes, anything that might show where the people being named in the fraud charge actually resided.
Then the AG sergeant drove down to Hidalgo County. The AG’s office had already asked DA Rodriguez if his office would help in the investigation, to which he said, yes.
When Molina accused Rodriguez of bias, saying he should have recused himself and his office from the case, and Mary Alice is his aunt, the DA said if this case involved one of his relatives being investigated, he would have recused. But since Molina isn’t related to him, there is no conflict.
So, with a Texas Ranger helping out the AG investigator, along with the Hidalgo County DA’s office, this case started tracking into the area of alleged voter fraud, which led to the arrest of Molina and his wife in April of 2019. The investigators would show up on someone’s doorstep with, say, the voter-address change form in hand, or the voter registration card, and ask why they listed an Edinburg address, to vote in the 2017 city election, when public records showed they were living in, say, Mission or Weslaco?
In fact, that’s where they were typically staying when the investigator showed up to talk – in a residence outside Edinburg city limits.
“The mayor (Richard Molina) told me it was okay,” was the common refrain heard during last week’s court testimony.
In fact, on some of the address- change forms, Molina’s name and/or signature was included, indicating that he was the one facilitating the address change.
During testimony Tuesday, Aug. 23, Molina never denied that he told the people to vote, because he thought it was legal to do so, but never had he coerced, intimidated, or forced anyone to either register to vote in 2017.
“They wanted to vote for me,” he said.
I’m late. Have to get back to court. Check anjournal. com for daily updates.