Federal prosecutors have dropped additional charges they had levied against a Weslaco cross-border businessman who, in October 2022, was convicted of defrauding the city of Weslaco.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa signed an order dismissing the charges against Ricardo “Rick” Quintanilla on Tuesday afternoon after attorneys for the government filed a motion to drop the charges earlier in the day.
Quintanilla had been facing one count each of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and wire fraud related to a pay-for-play scheme between a McAllen hotelier and Weslaco public officials.
In May 2020, that hotelier — and Quintanilla’s co-defendant — Sunil Wadhwani, pleaded guilty to paying $4,000 in bribes in order to secure a $300,000 incentive from the Economic Development Corporation of Weslaco to build a Motel 6.
Wadhwani has yet to be sentenced.
However, on Jan. 18, a different judge, U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez, sentenced Quintanilla to 16 years and 8 months for his role in a separate bribery scheme involving Weslaco public officials.
Alvarez handed down the punishment after a jury found Quintanilla and another man, former Hidalgo County Precinct 1 commissioner Arturo “A.C.” Cuellar, guilty of a combined 70 counts of bribery, money laundering and wire fraud.
She sentenced Cuellar to 20 years.
The jury convicted Quintanilla of 15 counts in the case.
The charges stemmed from a bribery scheme surrounding the $38.5 million rehabilitation of Weslaco’s water and wastewater infrastructure between 2008 and 2016.
During trial, jurors heard testimony of how Quintanilla served as an intermediary between the so-called “mastermind” of the bribery scheme, the late Leonel Lopez Jr., who at the time served as the Rio Grande City Municipal judge, and at least one Weslaco elected official.
Lopez wrote several checks to Quintanilla, who would, in turn, cash them and pass on part of the proceeds to then-District 4 Weslaco City Commissioner Gerardo “Jerry” Tafolla.
Tafolla ultimately turned government witness and testified that he had accepted the cash bribes from Quintanilla in exchange for voting in favor of hiring certain construction and engineering firms for the water plant rehab.
Tafolla also carried out other errands for Quintanilla on behalf of the conspiracy, including asking certain questions during Weslaco City Commission meetings once the conspiracy began to fall apart in 2015.
Prosecutors presented evidence of how Lopez and Quintanilla fed Tafolla questions to ask during the meetings after the city’s new leadership stopped paying one of the project contractors, Briones Engineering.
After seven days of testimony — including from Tafolla and another co-conspirator, former District 2 Weslaco City Commissioner John F. Cuellar — the jury quickly returned a unanimous verdict against Quintanilla and Arturo “A.C.” Cuellar.
Guilty on all counts.
The two men have since appealed both their convictions and sentences to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, prosecutors alleged that Quintanilla played a similar role in the hotel bribery scheme — one as an intermediary and bribe facilitator.
During his May 2020 re-arraignment, Wadhwani, the hotelier, admitted to paying Tafolla at least $4,000 in bribes in order to push through the deal to have the Weslaco EDC approve a hefty economic incentive.
At the time, Tafolla not only served on the city commission, but also sat on the EDC board of directors.
In furtherance of the scheme, Tafolla and other co-conspirators went as far as restructuring the EDC board, and terminated two of the corporation’s executive directors when they balked at the various iterations of the incentive agreement, federal prosecutors alleged.
But on Tuesday, those same prosecutors gave up the case, writing that “the Government no longer desires to prosecute (the) defendant” and that dismissing the remaining charges against Quintanilla would be “in the interest of justice.”
