A day after agents with Homeland Security Investigations raided the offices of a McAllen-based defense attorney, the nature of the investigation remains unknown.
On Friday, HSI officials reiterated they were not releasing any additional details related to a search of Eric Jarvis’ law office Thursday in connection with a federal investigation.
“Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) McAllen special agents conducted an enforcement action (Thursday) morning. The criminal investigation is ongoing, and no further details are available at this time,” the brief news release sent to the media Thursday afternoon stated.
About 10 a.m. Thursday, HSI agents arrived and executed a search warrant at the attorney’s office in the 5800 block of North 23rd Street in McAllen. The office is located inside a building owned by McAllen attorney and current mayoral candidate Javier Villalobos.
Villalobos, who rents out office space in the building to several tenants, other attorneys among them, released a statement confirming the search warrant and subsequent search of Jarvis’ office space.
“The Villalobos Law Center leases office space to five attorneys, a construction company, a Computer Tech, and an accountant,” the release stated.
“Today around 10:00 a.m., federal agents searched the office of one of the attorneys unrelated to the Law Office of Javier Villalobos, P.C. No other tenant affiliated with the Villalobos Law Center is connected to the search in any way.”
On Friday, via telephone, Villalobos confirmed the office searched belongs to attorney Eric Jarvis. He said federal agents had a search warrant to search Jarvis’ office but that he was not told anything else by the agents. Villalobos also said the attorney was not arrested.
The Monitor spoke with several sources in the legal community who confirmed their inability to reach or communicate with Jarvis on Thursday as his cellphone appeared to be turned off.
Calls to Jarvis’ cellphone Friday seeking comment on the aforementioned raid went unreturned as of Friday afternoon.
