McALLEN — Mission businessman Jorge O’Caña Jr. pleaded not guilty to a charge of witness tampering on Wednesday in relation to a large-scale public corruption scandal that has engulfed western Hidalgo County.
O’Caña was arrested by federal agents at his Mission home Tuesday morning in connection with a multiplayer pay-to-play plot meant to bilk several local governmental entities out of millions of dollars via fraudulent energy savings contracts.
Thus far, a series of related criminal charges and court documents that have been unsealed in recent months have revealed that those entities include the city of Mission, the La Joya Independent School District, the Agua Special Utility District and others.
According to the single-count indictment handed up on June 1, O’Caña tried to prevent Antonio Gonzalez III from testifying in an official proceeding about a bribery scheme involving contracts awarded to Performance Services, Inc.
O’Caña — who is the nephew of outgoing Mission Mayor Armando O’Caña and brother to Hidalgo County Court-at-Law Judge Patricia “Patty” O’Caña-Olivarez — will be required to remain on GPS-monitored home confinement pending trial.
That’s due to concerns that O’Caña is a flight risk. He has already failed to stay away from several alleged co-conspirators.
O’Caña has allegedly been using his employment as a self-made contractor “as subterfuge to talk to these individuals,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Roberto “Bobby” Lopez Jr. said as he pushed for more stringent bond release conditions before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nadia S. Medrano.
“The government informed him on two occasions. And even after the second (occasion), that’s when it happened again,” Lopez said, referring to a series of communications between O’Caña and at least two unnamed individuals tied to the corruption scheme.
The prosecutor was so concerned that he asked the magistrate judge to implement a release condition that has never before been deployed on a defendant in the Rio Grande Valley.
He asked the court to order the constant monitoring of O’Caña’s communication devices via an app that would “take random screenshots” and block access to certain third-party apps, Lopez explained during the afternoon hearing.
Lopez hinted about what prompted those concerns during O’Caña’s initial appearance, which had been held earlier in the day.
According to the prosecutor, O’Caña’s improper communications with co-conspirators had involved discussions about fleeing to Costa Rica, as well as the “hope for the death of a cooperating witness.”
But O’Caña’s defense attorney disputed Lopez’s characterization of events, and said installing such intrusive monitoring software on his client’s electronic devices would be “a huge invasion of privacy.”
“I disagree with the nature of the words that were expressed,” O’Caña’s attorney, Carlos M. Garcia, said via Zoom.
As the two attorneys continued the discussion Wednesday afternoon, Lopez said he was at a loss over how to ensure O’Caña would follow his release conditions while continuing to work as a self-employed contractor.
It was through that work that O’Caña had repeatedly been communicating with people he shouldn’t — either directly or through intermediaries, Lopez said.
The magistrate judge ultimately agreed with the government’s assessment that O’Caña was a flight risk and had been using his business as a guise for communicating with the individuals.
“Because it is the basis of these allegations, I can’t see any way to avoid (home confinement),” Medrano said before asking Lopez if he wanted the court to prohibit all communication with the unnamed individuals.
Though their identities were never revealed in open court, Lopez’s responses indicate that O’Caña may have particularly close ties to the unnamed individuals — ties that would perhaps normally lend themselves to regular communication.
The prosecutor seemed to want to prohibit even the most casual levels of communication between the defendant and the unnamed individuals.
“Given what’s included in the proffer, I would consider it incredibly problematic,” Lopez said, referring to a sealed document that laid out the government’s allegations.
However, Medrano, the magistrate judge, sided with the defense over the privacy concerns raised by the request to constantly electronically monitor O’Caña.
“I’m not gonna do this other monitoring,” Medrano said, adding that drastic measures would be better deployed on “somebody that is truly more dangerous.”
Instead, the judge set bond at $75,000 to be secured by either a surety or a $5,000 cash deposit. Medrano further ordered that O’Caña remain on home confinement and wear an ankle monitor fitted with “constant GPS monitoring.”
“This is in relation to all the other public corruption cases we’ve been having come through?” Medrano asked before the hearing ended.
“Yes, your honor. They’re multimillion dollar (schemes),” Lopez said.
