San Benito goes after ex-judge

SAN BENITO — Thirteen years later, the city wants former longtime Municipal Judge Frances Flores to pay up.

In 2004, she was convicted of stealing $743,000 in court fines and fees between 1997 and 2003.

Earlier this week, city commissioners met in closed session with City Attorney Ricardo Morado before announcing they would seek a court judgment against Flores.

“We’re asking for her to pay the city,” City Commissioner Esteban Rodriguez said yesterday.

Rodriguez said a recent audit found Flores had not made restitution.

“The city wants to collect,” Rodriguez said.

Officials have not disclosed the amount of money they want her pay.

In March 2004, Flores, who had served as the city’s municipal court judge for 20 years, was sentenced to seven years in prison after her conviction on a charge of felony theft by a public servant.

Flores had pleaded no contest to the theft of $743,000 in court fines and fees.

“I made a big mistake,” Flores, 49 at the time, said at her sentencing. “I failed myself and the citizens of San Benito. I did not take $743,000. I did favors — a lot of favors.”

In February 2003, Flores, who was making $34,649 a year, suddenly resigned after a random audit uncovered “a significant discrepancy between cash received and cash deposits” during a two-month period in 2002, according to a city statement at the time.

The city launched an audit of Municipal Court records and found $734,000 in court fines and fees missing from 1997 to 2003.

Of the missing money, about $245,000 was owed to the Texas Comptroller’s Office, so the city had to pay that money to the state.

In a resolution, city officials argued actual damages to taxpayers totaled more than $1 million.

During the scandal, the city filed a lawsuit to try to recover money spent on properties.

But in late 2003, officials dropped the suit to avoid interfering with Flores’ criminal case.

City officials had requested District Court Judge Ben Euresti give Flores the maximum seven-year sentence.

But Flores served about three years of her sentence before her good behavior helped lead to her release from Gatesville Women’s Prison in early 2007.

Community outcry help lead the state parole board to deny Flores’ early release several times.

“You had a community that spoke out strongly,” then-Cameron County District Attorney Yolanda De Leon said at the time. “That’s why she did so much time.”

Flores’ current whereabouts could not be determined.

The scandal rattled this town where Flores had dealt out punishment from the judge’s bench for about 20 years.

In 1981, Flores took a job as a municipal court clerk.

About two years later, then-Mayor Cesar Gonzalez appointed her municipal judge after the city judge died.

“I feel terrible,” Gonzalez said after the first audit findings led Flores to resign. “I hired her because she had the experience.”