BROWNSVILLE — Two probable cause affidavits released by authorities yesterday reveal how criminal charges brought this week against Cameron County Tax-Assessor Collector Tony Yzaguirre Jr. and three others transpired in an investigation dubbed “Operation Dirty Deeds.”

An undercover operation in 2015 by the Texas Department of Public Safety led to the arrest Wednesday of Yzaguirre, county tax investigator Pedro Garza, dealer/notary supervisor Omar Sanchez-Paz and Chief of Investigations Lt. Jose Mireles.

The probable cause affidavits detailed dealings in which Yzaguirre allegedly would take cash in exchange for private meetings to perform fraudulent vehicle registrations this past September and December. The probable cause affidavit also states Yzaguirre in the meeting had one of his investigators check a person — referred to in the affidavit as a “cooperating individual” — to see if he was wearing a “wire,” also known as a recording device for undercover law enforcement operations.

The probable cause affidavit alleges that, for a $100 fee per vehicle, Yzaguirre would meet personally with vehicle registration applicants who otherwise couldn’t register a vehicle.

Yzaguirre is accused of helping register vehicles that were junked and no longer in service. The vehicles were surrendered to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. According to the probable cause affidavit, the vehicles were to be registered to individuals who did not exist.

The probable cause affidavit states a “cooperating individual,” or “CI,” met personally with Yzaguirre and after having the three vehicles registered, he pulled a tax office envelope off Yzaguirre’s desk and placed $300 inside it, leaving it for the county tax assessor-collector.

According to the probable cause affidavit: “Yzaguirre acknowledged to the CI of the CI leaving money for Yzaguirre.” The cooperating individual left Yzaguirre’s office with registration for the three vehicles in which he paid $819.75, and this alleged incident occurred on Sept. 14, 2015, the affidavit said.

In another incident, a cooperating individual met with Yzaguirre on Dec. 15, 2015, where the county tax assessor-collector helped facilitate the registration of two other vehicles without having the documents to register them, the probable cause affidavit states.

According to the affidavit, Yzaguirre had a clerk assist the “CI” with the registration of the vehicles. At the conclusion of the registration, the “CI” paid Yzaguirre $200 to have the vehicles registered, the affidavit reads.

Yzaguirre was charged with four counts of bribery, a second-degree felony; engaging in organized criminal activity, a first-degree felony; and official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.

Garza was charged with bribery, engaging in organized criminal activity and official oppression.

Sanchez-Paz was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and abuse of official capacity, a Class A misdemeanor.

Mireles was charged with bribery, engaging in organized criminal activity and official oppression.

The men were arrested and booked at the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center Wednesday and were later released on a personal recognizance bonds issued by Magistrate Alfredo Padilla.

The investigation prompted federal and state authorities to shut down the tax office and the Administration Building for three days in order for authorities to search and seize documents from the tax office.

Cameron County Judge Pete Sepulveda Jr. said, “The investigation was focused on the DMV side of the office so the property tax function was not implicated.”

Sepulveda said the tax office and Cameron County Administration building would re-open for business Monday. He said county officials are working with the Department of Motor Vehicles to ensure the DMV system will be in operation Monday.

It is still unknown at this time who will be representing the four men against the criminal charges. The office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz was contacted to determine who would be representing the men. However, a spokesperson said the office had yet to receive word from any attorneys.

Yzaguirre was contacted for comment on the charges but has not responded.

SAN BENITO — Local residents Mario and Astrid Hernandez pushed the double doors open and walked down the stairs away from the Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office yesterday afternoon.

They weren’t happy, based on their facial expressions.

They left with no vehicle registration sticker — the purpose of their stop there.

Mario and his wife Astrid, who is 36 weeks pregnant, had just left one doctor’s appointment and made time to obtain the car sticker before racing to another appointment.

Mario’s sticker expired in December.

“I’m here because my wife is pregnant and we’re busy running around to doctors’ appointments,” Mario, 31 said. “What happens if the police give me a ticket?”

Mario wanted answers to that question. The tax office couldn’t answer that yesterday.

Although employees were back at work, the tax assessor-collector’s computer network link to the Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin is down until further notice.

The closure is due to the Wednesday arrest of Tony Yzaguirre, Cameron County’s tax assessor-collector, and three employees of the tax office.

Mario was told the office was not issuing car registration stickers and that he would have to go to H-E-B or apply for the stickers on the state website.

Mario said he had no other choice but to find the nearest H-E-B, where he expected he would have to wait in a long line to register his vehicle.

“I don’t have time,” Mario said, worried his wife and unborn baby would need to be taken to the doctor or hospital in their vehicle with expired stickers.

Mario and Astrid weren’t the only ones who left the county tax office frustrated yesterday.

Several county residents entered the tax office unaware of the arrest of Yzaguirre.

Many others who needed car stickers in San Benito and Harlingen were also sent to H-E-B because of the office closure.

The H-E-B system is tied directly to the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles.

The stores are processing vehicle registration renewals for Cameron County for an additional $1 processing fee.

Wendy Garcia was sitting in her car outside the tax office in Harlingen. She was upset that a simple transaction with the county wasn’t possible for her yesterday.

“I need the sticker to be able to drive my car and I couldn’t get that today,” Garcia, 25, said as she sat in her car wondering what to do next.

Garcia and others who visited the office on the north side of Harlingen also were unaware of the recent arrests and raid at the tax office in Brownsville.

The office was derailed on Wednesday when Yzaguirre and the three employees were arrested on charges of bribery and engaging in organized criminal activity.

Yzaguirre has been the tax assessor-collector since 1988.

“We’re hopeful we will get cooperation from law enforcement for people that couldn’t get back to the tax office to fix their expired plates,” said David Garcia, county administrator. “We don’t want people having problems further down the road.”

Offices reopened on Thursday for property tax collection purposes after being closed on Wednesday due to the undercover operation called “Dirty Deeds” on the tax assessor-collector’s office.

“This hurts us a little bit but thankfully we have the office open,” Garcia said.

The investigation was a collaborative effort by the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations and the Cameron Count District Attorney’s Office.

Yzaguirre and the three others were released on bonds after they were booked at the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito.

County Judge Pete Sepulveda issued a statement late yesterday saying his office is working with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles to ensure the DMV system is up and running at the Courthouse Administration Building in Brownsville first thing Monday morning.

SAN BENITO — The first item on Superintendent Adrian Vega’s agenda is to get to know the people within the district and outside it.

That includes teachers, parents, staff, the community and students.

Vega spent yesterday afternoon traveling to different campuses around the district meeting with the many people he hopes to gain insight from.

After all, he said they are the ones who have been here “longer than me.”

“My goal for going to campuses is touching base with people and listening to people and asking them how things are going. How long have they been with the district? What do they feel the district does well?” Vega said. “Give me your thoughts.”

After the quick departure of former superintendent Marc Puig in July, the school board hired Vega as his replacement in November.

Before beginning his new position as head of the district, Vega was deputy superintendent for Teaching & Learning at the Tucson Unified School District in Arizona.

Vega, who is originally from Texas, will be paid an annual salary of $155,000, which is $15,000 more than his predecessor, Puig.

Under the terms of his contract with the San Benito school district, Vega is expected to live within city limits.

Having already relocated his family, Vega is delighted his two middle school-aged children also are part of the district and he can drive them to school on a daily basis.

For the beginning stages of his leadership, Vega said right now it’s about listening, observing and assessing.

There are two important items on Vega’s to-do list.

“I would like to conduct a district-wide efficiency audit, taking a look at operations,” Vega said.

“Does the district operate efficiently? I would also like to conduct a curriculum audit in the spring,”

A curriculum audit would look at the teaching and learning side of things.

“It’s just to get a clear picture,” he said.

For example, Vega said, “If I am a classroom teacher, it would be wise to assess my kids on the first day of school to know where they are at and then go from there.”

“I’m not going to be able to meet the needs of the district if I don’t know what is working or where there are gaps,” Vega said.

After that, he said he can bring an objective perspective and dive into a strategic plan to move the district forward.

It’s too early to tell what that plan will entail.

“If the idea is to truly prepare our kids for their lives and its 2016 and the world keeps changing, we need to make sure we are truly preparing them for that.”

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BROWNSVILLE — John Chambers, a candidate for Cameron County sheriff and former Indian Lake police chief, was found guilty of 14 counts of tampering with government records.

The week-long trial in Judge Janet Leal’s 103rd state District Court concluded yesterday when a jury ruled against Chambers, who was arrested Feb. 23, 2015, by officers with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement and investigators from the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office.

Investigators said Chambers created false entries in government records concerning firearms qualification for some of his deputies on or about Jan.13, 2015.

Alfredo Avalos, a former officer with the Indian Lake Police Department, testified Chambers directed him to make false entries on the firearms qualifications after a field agent from TCOLE performed an audit on the department and found deficiencies in the department.

Among the deficiencies, Avalos testified that some firearms qualifications were blank except for a firearms instructor’s signature.

According to TCOLE, all law enforcement officers in the state are required to undergo annual firearms instruction.

Chambers is set for sentencing Jan. 28 in the 103rd state district court before Leal, who will hand down Chamber’s punishment.

So, Santiago Perez blames something he overheard from some kid on teachers, lax parenting, the educational system on bilingual education. Something tells me Santiago should do some fact checking on the benefits of being bilingual or multilingual.

This is just one report from Time magazine.

Never mind how well spoken you might be now, you will never again be as adept with languages as the day you were born. Indeed, the youngest person in any room is almost always the best linguist there too.

There are 6,800 languages in the world, and since you can’t know where you’ll be born, you have to pop from the womb to be able to speak any one of them. That talent fades fast — as early as nine months after birth, some of our language synapses start getting pruned away.

But well into your grammar school years, your ability to learn a second — or third or fourth — language is still remarkable.

That, it turns out, is very good for the brain. New studies are showing that a multilingual brain is nimbler, quicker, better able to deal with ambiguities, resolve conflicts and even resist Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia longer.

All of this is prompting public schools to implement languageimmersion programs for kids as young as kindergartners, as I report in the new issue of Time Magazine; nowhere is that more evident than in Utah, where 20 percent of all public schools offer K-12 dual-language instruction, with students taking half their classes every day in English and half in either Spanish, French, Mandarin or Portuguese. To date, representatives from 22 other states have gone to Utah to learn more about the program.

The kids in bilingual classes in Utah and elsewhere aren’t thinking much about the nature of their brains when they go to school each morning; they’re only aware of the rich and lyrical experience of living and learning bilingually. But scientists — particularly neurologists, psychologists and educational specialists — are watching closely. In a polyglot world, a largely monoglot nation like the U.S. is at last moving to catch up — and not a moment too soon.

Mrs. E. A. Garza Harlingen