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The final defendant tied to the Weslaco water plant bribery case has learned his fate nearly five years after admitting to his role.
U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez sentenced David Fox — once a Weslaco city commissioner and member of the city’s economic development corporation — to time served and one year of court supervision.
Fox had been facing up to five years in federal prison and up to $250,000 in fines for lying to a federal grand jury when prosecutors asked if he had received anything of value in exchange for his votes on the Weslaco City Commission.
The former elected official testified before the grand jury in November 2018, when investigators were still piecing together the pay-to-play scheme that saw Weslaco bilked out of millions of dollars on an overpriced rehabilitation of its aging water and sewer infrastructure.
“(Fox) knowingly made a material false declaration by responding ‘no’ to the question, ‘Did you receive any money or any benefit from any individual or entity in connection with casting a vote as a member of the Weslaco City Commission?’” Assistant U.S. Attorney Roberto “Bobby” Lopez Jr. said during a 2019 court hearing.
Fox pleaded guilty to perjury during that hearing, admitting that he had lied to the grand jury when answering that question.
Fox later told prosecutors that he had accepted “at least $2,000 in bribes” from a person whom he believed “intended to influence his voting and decisions in connection with the Weslaco water and wastewater treatment facilities,” Lopez stated then.
The identity of the person who paid those bribes has never been publicly revealed.
However, two other former elected officials also pleaded guilty to accepting and paying bribes in order to steer Weslaco into greenlighting a number of multimillion contracts toward certain construction firms that prosecutors characterized as “corrupt.”
Former Weslaco Commissioners John F. Cuellar and Gerardo “Jerry” Tafolla pleaded guilty to their roles in August and April 2019, respectively.
The pair turned government witnesses and testified against the men they say paid their bribes and facilitated the bribing of others during the eight-year-long scheme.
Cuellar, an attorney by trade, testified against his cousin, former Hidalgo County Precinct 1 Commissioner Arturo “A.C.” Cuellar, during an eight-day trial in October 2022.
Meanwhile, Tafolla testified against his longtime friend, Weslaco businessman Ricardo “Rick” Quintanilla.
The trial revealed that the co-conspirators funneled at least $4.1 million of the city’s money between themselves and three engineering firms — Boston-based CDM Smith, San Antonio-based Briones Consulting & Engineering, and McAllen-based LeFevre Environmental & Management Consulting.
Of that, nearly $1.4 million went to A.C. Cuellar, who paid his cousin John approximately $405,000 in bribes.
The pair disguised the bribes as legitimate payments for legal services rendered to a Corpus Christi concrete company A.C. held an ownership stake in called Quality Ready Mix, John Cuellar testified.
Federal prosecutors also showed that at least $85,000 went to Quintanilla via checks written by former Rio Grande City municipal judge Leonel Lopez Jr.
Quintanilla, in turn, used about half that money to bribe Tafolla, according to Tafolla’s testimony.
Ultimately, a jury convicted A.C. Cuellar and Quintanilla of a combined 70 counts of bribery, money laundering and wire fraud.
In January 2023, Alvarez, the federal judge, sentenced A.C. Cuellar to 20 years in federal prison and Quintanilla to 16 years and eight months.
That same day, she sentenced John Cuellar to three years in federal prison.
Further, she ordered that the two Cuellars and Quintanilla were jointly on the hook to pay some $4.1 million in restitution to the city of Weslaco.
Last November, Tafolla was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
Leonel Lopez, meanwhile, had been expected to be the government’s star witness.
In March 2019, he pleaded guilty to accepting more than $4 million in bribes as part of the scheme while keeping $2.5 million for himself. However, he died of cancer in November 2020.
Federal prosecutors later dropped the charges against another Rio Grande City man who had been named in the same lengthy 2019 indictment against the two Cuellars and Quintanilla.
That indictment alleged that Daniel J. Garcia, an attorney and onetime Rio Grande City school board trustee, used his attorney trust account to funnel nearly $100,000 in bribes.
But Garcia steadfastly maintained his innocence. In December 2021, prosecutors announced they were dismissing the charges against him, though they elided a reason why.
“Mr. Garcia is glad that it’s all over, this nightmare is over,” Oscar Vega, one of Garcia’s defense team, said at the time.
David Fox’s sentencing hearing at McAllen federal court on Wednesday marked the end of the final chapter in the criminal case against the co-conspirators.
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