A federal grand jury has indicted Adrian Edward Pena, a former executive of El Paso's C.F. Jordan Inc. in connection with the county contract for a $7.6 million parking garage annex Downtown.
Pena’s indictment, released Thursday, is the eighth in an ongoing public corruption investigation that has seen 12 people plead guilty to bribery, conspiracy, fraud and deprivation of honest services charges so far. (download indictment below)
In general, the three count indictment accuses Pena, who left C.F. Jordan two years ago, of conspiring with and bribing former El Paso County Commissioner Elizabeth “Betti” Flores in exchange for her support and her vote to award the parking garage contract to Jordan. The company reports that Pena was "an estimator in charge of bidding work and procuring vendors" for the company. [Correction: Newspaper Tree altered the headline and body of this story on Sept. 14 to correct the Pena's job title.]
The indictment of Pena covers activities from Aug. 25, 2003 to about June 14, 2006.
Flores implicated Pena when she pleaded guilty without being indicted in 2007 to six charges contained in an information. [Betti Flores pleads guilty, July 6, 2007]
According to her information, in count three of the six charges, Flores stated that unnamed co-conspirators paid her $10,000 in exchange for a vote in favor of the El Paso County Parking Garage Annex and to advocate change orders to the contract.
The contractor on the County Parking Garage Annex was C.F. Jordan. Flores made a motion to approve change orders to the contract on Feb. 7, 2005, according to county minutes. Commissioner Dan Haggerty seconded the motion. The minutes do not indicate the amount of the change order. [minutes] The item was posted as an addendum to the agenda, and was posted as “discuss and take appropriate action on issues pertaining to the status and progression of the new parking garage currently under discussion.” No backup information was included. [agenda]
According to a document filed as an attachment to an item calling for release of retainage in the amount of $776,723.70 for the June 12, 2006 meeting, the contract was $7.598 million, with $175,000 in change orders. [link] Flores made the motion to approve the item at the June 12, 2006 meeting. The motion was seconded by then-County Judge Dolores Briones, and supported by Commissioner Dan Haggerty, while Commissioner Miguel Teran abstained. [minutes]
However, those items are not mentioned in the indictment of Pena.
What it does allege is that Flores admitted that she asked Pena to perform remodeling work on her home and he agreed in exchange for her support and vote in favor of Jordan on the contract.
Pena’s indictment refers to Flores by her initials as EF.
“However, because of a concern that vehicles bearing commercial emblems on them would be seen at EF’s residence, the defendant Adrian Edward Pena, instead, paid an approximately $10,000 cash bribe to EF to be used by EF for the remodeling project,” Pena’s indictment alleges.
The indictment alleges that Pena later paid her $10,000 in two installments.
Jordan was awarded the design-build contract for the parking garage by El Paso Commissioners Court on Feb. 11, 2004, the indictment states.
Then on March 2, Pena met with Flores to discuss modifications to the construction plans, the indictment states, and “instructed EF to have these modified plans and designs presented to Commissioners Court … for consideration.”
On March 15, 2004, Pena appeared before Commissioners Court to present the modified designs and Flores voted in favor of negotiating a contract; on May 17, Flores voted with Comissioners Court to approve the contract.
The indictment, which does not allege any wrongdoing on the part of the Jordan company, contains three counts of mail fraud and one included charge of deprivation of honest services.
The sequence of events alleged following the May 17, 2004 meeting:
-- On Aug. 27, 2004, Pena met with Flores. They discussed remodeling her home; Pena asked for help getting an invoice expedited. The two also allegedly agreed that instead of Pena doing the work he'd pay $10,000 to Flores, and he gave her a $1,000 downpayment.
-- On Aug. 31, 2004, Flores attended a meeting at which she pressed for payment of the invoice. The indictment does not state where or with whom Flores met. The El Paso County Web site does not show an agenda or minutes for that date.
-- On Sept. 13, 2004, the indictment alleges, Flores voted in favor of paying the invoice at a Commissioner's Court meeting. However, the El Paso County Web site does not show an agenda or minutes for that meeting.
-- Finally, the indictment alleges that on Sept. 21, 2004, Pena paid Flores the remainder of the promised payoff, $9,000.
Flores was the second person to plead guilty in the public corruption case. In addition to Flores:
-- Seven other defendants have pleaded guilty to public corruption charges by information before being indicted. The first was Travis Ketner, former Chief of Staff for current County Judge Anthony Cobos. The others are Carlos Cordova, former trustee of the El Paso Independent School District; architect Bernardo Lucero; financiers Bobby Ruiz and Chris Pak; lawyer Raymond Telles; and campaign consultant Tony Dill
-- Insider and confidant of politicians Fernando Parra was indicted on unrelated charges developed in the course of the investigation, and then pleaded guilty in connection to public corruption
-- Businessman Bob Jones was indicted on wire fraud conspiracy and tax evasion charges.
-- Sal Mena became the first person to be indicted on Aug. 14, 2008. His indictment became public when he was arrested Aug. 29, 2008. On Feb. 18, 2009, Mena and a surprise defendant, Gary William Lange, a former executive with two companies Strategic Government Solutions Inc. and its subsidiary, ESP, pleaded guilty.
-- On June 5, 2009, former El Paso County Judge Luther Jones and District Clerk Gilbert Sanchez were indicted together on charges of colluding to rig a bid for digitizing services for the district clerk's office. Over the past week they have filed motions seeking dismissal of the charges and recusal of the judge on the case.
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