McALLEN — It will be at least three more weeks before former La Joya Mayor Jose Adolfo “Fito” Salinas, his daughter, Frances Salinas De Leon, and another accomplice learn what sentences they will receive for their roles in a public corruption scheme.
The trio, which also included Ramiro Alaniz, was slated to be sentenced Thursday; however, after learning that Salinas De Leon was unavailable for court due to a temporary hospitalization.
“These medical claims, I’m just dubious of them,” U.S. District Judge Randy Crane said in response to a motion filed by Salinas De Leon’s attorney, David Acosta, to delay the sentencing proceedings.
Crane’s response came during the beginning of the discussion into Salinas De Leon’s condition, but just after the judge had ordered a sentencing delay for a quintet of defendants convicted of participating in a drug trafficking scheme.
Attorneys for the defendants in that unrelated case had similarly argued for a delay in sentencing due to medical concerns.
Salinas and his daughter pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to defraud the city of La Joya, the La Joya Economic Development Corporation and the La Joya Housing Authority.
According to charging documents, Salinas De Leon, along with another woman, Sylvia Garces Valdez, were the masterminds behind at least one of the schemes.
In that scheme, Valdez paid Salinas De Leon to influence her father, Fito Salinas, to use his position as mayor in order to grant Valdez a public relations contract with the housing authority, according to the third superseding indictment in federal court.
Last July, Salinas pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme.
The former mayor reconsidered his not guilty plea on the same day that jury selection had begun for his trial, according to a report from The Progress Times.
Garces Valdez later pleaded guilty to related charges in state court, pleading guilty to a Class A misdemeanor of improper influence.
On Sept. 30, 2021, she was sentenced to two years’ community supervision. The federal charges against her were dismissed the same day.
Meanwhile, the month before her father changed his plea to guilty, Salinas De Leon herself also changed her mind.
Both she and Alaniz pleaded guilty on June 17, 2021 to their roles in Count 5 of the third superseding indictment against them.
That fraud scheme involved the Arcoriris children’s daycare center in La Joya.
The center was owned by a couple who, in 2016, applied for a $217,000 revolving loan from the La Joya EDC in order to make improvements to the daycare. The loan program is funded through grant and loan resources provided by the USDA via a federal program meant to stimulate small business growth.
Salinas De Leon and Alaniz have admitted they used the daycare center project as a vehicle to funnel kickbacks to themselves.
As with the public relations contract, Salinas De Leon leveraged her father’s position within the city to facilitate the scheme.
As mayor, Fito Salinas was also the president of the EDC board and had the ability to appoint other members to the board. And the La Joya City Council, like other municipalities, has the final say over decisions approved of by the EDC.
Salinas De Leon put herself in charge of the daycare renovations, “including its finances,” a year after that first loan application, according to charging documents.
Once in control, she hired Alaniz — the maintenance supervisor for the La Joya Housing Authority — as the general contractor for the daycare project.
Salinas De Leon soon began acting on behalf of the daycare to request additional funds, all while collecting $5,000 a month for serving as the project’s consultant.
In April 2017, Salinas De Leon, on behalf of the daycare, requested a second revolving loan for more than $241,000. Eight months letter, she requested nearly $100,000 more.
Throughout the pendency of the project, Salinas De Leon instructed Alaniz to inflate the project’s invoices. Alaniz likewise instructed subcontractors who were working on the project to do the same.
“DE LEON instructed ALANIZ to inflate billing invoices and ALANIZ instructed some contractors to inflate their invoices to hide that DE LEON was being paid kickbacks with money loaned to Arcoiris, LLC from the La Joya EDC,” the third superseding indictment reads.
Salinas De Leon also took money for herself directly from the daycare’s bank accounts.
“Additionally, DE LEON embezzled U.S. currency from the Arcoiris, LLC bank account… via cash withdrawals and ATM withdrawals,” the indictment reads.
In federal court Thursday, the judge indicated his desire to sentence the trio at the same time, once Salinas De Leon becomes available.
“We can be back in two weeks,” Crane said.
But prosecutors asked if the court could conduct a check-in prior to that to confirm if Salinas De Leon will be available.
Can we “set a status (conference) next week maybe when she’s out of the psychiatric hold?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarina S. DiPiazza asked.
DiPiazza also indicated that the government would be calling at least one witness to weigh in on the circumstances surrounding the various corruption schemes.
That witness is expected to be Mike Alaniz, the former La Joya City Manager who himself pleaded guilty to federal theft charges in 2019.
Mike Alaniz and Ramiro Alaniz are not related.
“He is on the audio quite extensively… advocating in this,” Crane said, referring to a series of audio recordings of La Joya public meetings where the details of the fraud schemes were approved.
Crane asked if Mike Alaniz’s testimony at the sentencings of Salinas, Salinas De Leon and Ramiro Alaniz would put his rights against self-incrimination in jeopardy since he has not been charged in the schemes.
“He was prosecuted in a separate case,” DiPiazza said, referring to a case in which Mike Alaniz participated in a series of suspicious land deals that also involved the La Joya EDC.
Sentencing for Salinas, Salinas De Leon and Ramiro Alaniz is set for April 28.
