Judge scales back restitution for La Joya’s convicted ex-mayor

Two weeks after sentencing former La Joya mayor Jose “Fito” Salinas to nearly three years in federal prison and ordering that he pay more than $320,000 in restitution to the city he defrauded, a federal judge has reconsidered that sentence and lowered the amount the former mayor must repay.

U.S. District Judge Randy Crane on Monday granted a motion by Salinas’ attorney, Michael McCrum, of San Antonio, to reconsider the restitution amount Salinas must repay for his role in four schemes he and his daughter, Frances Salinas De Leon, participated in.

McCrum, whom Salinas retained after his sentencing on April 28, argued that though prosecutors had tied Salinas’ involvement to all four schemes — and though he admitted such — the former mayor had only pleaded guilty to one of the five charges laid out in the indictment against him, and could therefore only be ordered to pay restitution on that one count.

“The Fifth Circuit has held that a trial court’s order of restitution must be limited by the offense of conviction,” McCrum argued in a May 11 motion for correction of sentence.

The judge agreed and lowered the amount of restitution Salinas owes to just $22,000 — a figure related to a public relations contract Salinas had awarded to one of his daughter’s associates.

THE CHARGES

Federal prosecutors had initially implicated Salinas in three of the five counts laid out in the indictment against him, his daughter and two other co-conspirators.

The five counts detailed the four separate schemes prosecutors say either the former mayor or his daughter had contrived.

The first two counts revolved around a public relations contract for the La Joya Housing Authority.

In that scheme, prosecutors said a woman named Sylvia Garces Valdez had paid Frances Salinas — at Frances Salinas’ suggestion — $10,000 to “influence and reward” her father to award the contract to Garces Valdez.

In the second scheme — outlined by count three of the indictment — Salinas sold his personal property at an inflated price to the city, which was looking to expand its cemetery.

The third scheme — detailed in count four of the indictment — also involved the La Joya Housing Authority. Only Frances Salinas was charged in that count.

In that scheme, Salinas admitted to using the power of his office to have his daughter appointed as the interim executive director of the housing authority.

Finally, count five lays out the details of the largest of the schemes and names both Fito and Frances Salinas, as well as a man named Ramiro Alaniz, who then served as a maintenance supervisor for the housing authority.

In that scheme, Frances Salinas named herself the manager of a project to rehabilitate a daycare center called Arcoiris Daycare.

She then used her position to leverage the La Joya Economic Development Corporation — which was chaired by her father — to approve several federally funded small business loans.

The funds — totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — were ostensibly meant to pay for substantial improvements to the daycare.

Instead, Frances Salinas appointed Alaniz the general manager of the project and instructed him to inflate invoices, then kick the excess funds back to her. Furthermore, Frances Salinas would use her access to the daycare’s bank accounts to withdraw money for her own use.

GUILTY PLEA

Though prosecutors alleged Fito Salinas was materially involved in all four schemes, and though he was singularly charged in the cemetery land scheme, he nonetheless pleaded guilty to just one of the four counts against him.

On a sunny morning last July — just as the court was convening to empanel a jury for Fito Salinas’ trial — the former mayor had an 11th hour change of mind.

In exchange for avoiding a trial, the former mayor reached a deal with prosecutors that would allow him to plead guilty to count two of the indictment — the count which outlined his involvement in Garces Valdez’s public relations contract.

“Restitution cannot be based upon conduct that does not underlie the offense of conviction. … This includes conduct that may appear to be the natural result of or directly related to the conduct underlying the offense of conviction,” McCrum, Salinas’ new defense attorney, argued in the motion to reduce the restitution amount.

In other words, though the former mayor was integrally involved in the network of public corruption schemes, his conviction via guilty plea to a singular charge precluded the judge from including those other schemes in Salinas’ restitution.

The judge was allowed, however, to use Salinas’ involvement in those other schemes as a consideration of “relevant conduct” when handing down his prison term.

Salinas’ extensive involvement in all of the schemes had prompted Crane to consider making a so-called upward departure in Salinas’ sentence — an option that would have allowed Crane to sentence Salinas to more prison time than that recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines.

However, Salinas’ advanced age — 83 — was the only thing that kept the judge from doing so. Instead, Crane sentenced Salinas to two years and nine months, the maximum amount of time recommended.