Performance Services Inc., the Indiana-based energy services company at the center of a massive public corruption scandal in western Hidalgo County, has reached a settlement with one of its former contractors.
PSI finalized the $500,000 settlement agreement with Antonio Gonzalez III on Monday in McAllen federal court.
According to the terms of the agreement, Gonzalez’s Weslaco-based company, Harmony Business Consulting, will pay the half-a-million-dollar sum for breach of contract after ensnaring PSI in what has become one of the largest public corruption scandals to hit the county in years.
In 2018, PSI hired Gonzalez to serve as a liaison between the company and Rio Grande Valley public officials as it sought to convince local government entities to buy into its energy savings contracts.
The company pledges to help achieve cost savings through a variety of means, including by installing energy efficient lighting, solar panels and implementing other measures on publicly owned infrastructure.
PSI touts the upgrades as a “budget-neutral solution” that eventually pays for itself and comes with no up-front costs.
Gonzalez was meant to be the man at public meetings who delivered PSI’s pitch; to explain how the energy savings contracts worked, and how PSI could save cities, school districts and other public entities money.
But instead, Gonzalez — along with others —were working a quid pro quo scheme whereby public officials accepted bribes in exchange for pushing through approval of contracts with PSI.
On April 14, 2022, Gonzalez and another man, Chirag Patel, pleaded guilty to paying bribes in order to secure the contracts.
Gonzalez admitted to paying $30,000 in bribes to a Mission school board trustee while Patel admitted to receiving more than $143,000 during the scheme, according to copies of plea agreements.
But the bribery conspiracy extended far beyond them.
About a dozen people — largely elected or public officials — have been implicated in a series of indictments filed by federal prosecutors last year.
The conspirators targeted the city of Mission, the La Joya Independent School District and the Agua Special Utility District.
Several people named in the numerous indictments have since pleaded guilty, including Omar Romero, Andres “Andy” Morales and Alex Guajardo — all former Peñitas officials.
Administrators and former La Joya ISD school board trustees have also pleaded guilty.
However, while PSI has now secured a $500,000 judgment against Gonzalez’s consulting company, it could stand to lose millions more in lawsuits that Mission and Agua SUD have pending against it in state court.
Mission is suing PSI for more than $17 million while Agua SUD is hoping to recoup the $12 million it took out in loans to pay for its energy savings contract.
In its lawsuit against Gonzalez and Harmony Consulting, PSI said that it “has experienced a backlash of pending and current contracts” due to the host of criminal charges against the western Hidalgo County officials.
It further described the illicit scheme as having a “chilling effect” on its ability to do business.
