Fernando Parra apparently is going to change his plea in regards to charges related to his indictment on child pornography charges.
Federal District Court Judge Frank Montalvo last week signed an order setting the change of plea date for July 14.
Parra, a political operative who has worked on numerous campaigns in El Paso, has been implicated as an alleged co-conspirator in the ongoing public corruption investigation.
A federal grand jury indicted Parra in early February on child pornography charges, to which he initially pleaded not guilty. He has been behind bars since because the U.S. attorney’s office argued successfully that Parra, who has family in Mexico, was a flight risk.
His lawyer, Gall Pissetzky of Chicago, declined to comment on the plea set for July 14, beyond stating that
"we're still working on the plea agreement."
Parra became a naturalized U.S. citizen after applying for citizenship in 2006. He had lived in El Paso for 11 years, attended Cathedral High School and UTEP.
Although the pornography case is not directly related to the corruption investigation being conducted by the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office, information disclosed at Parra’s bond hearing indicated that the charges against him arose from that investigation. [npt feb 6, 2008: parra indicted; bond granted, then appealed]
Parra formerly worked in the El Paso County District Clerk’s office and was implicated in a federal court document as an unnamed co-conspirator in a scheme to rig the assignment of certain cases to certain judges regarded as friendly to other alleged co-conspirators.
The document in question was the information containing the four charges to which John Travis Ketner, the former chief of staff to County Judge Anthony Cobos, pled guilty after an FBI raid on offices at the county courthouse a little over a year ago.
The information referred to 17 unnamed co-conspirators, nearly all of whom were easily identifiable by the descriptions provided of their positions, roles in the community and associations.
The individual referred to as co-conspirator No. 1 in Ketner’s case was former County Judge Luther Jones, a lawyer.
At Parra’s bond hearing, an FBI agent testified that Parra moved into an apartment Jones’ owned in the upscale Fairmont Condominiums building at 1800 N. Stanton.
A statement from the U.S. Attorney's office about Parra’s indictment read, in part:
"The indictment charges Parra with one count each of distribution of child pornography, possession of child pornography and interstate transportation of obscene material. Upon conviction of all charges, Parra faces between five and 35 years in federal prison. The indictment alleges that for a year beginning in September 2005, Parra knowingly received and transmitted via a computer visual depictions of child pornography." [parra indictment]
