CHAMBERS' APPEAL RAISES QUESTIONS ON D.A.'S PROSECUTION

By Juan Montoya
Less than two weeks after former Indian Lakes Police Chief John Chambers filed a Texas State Bar complaint against Cameron County lead prosecutor Gus Garza for declining to prosecute some of his criminal cases, an auditor of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) suddenly showed up at his office.
Indian Lakes is a small town with a population that fluctuates with the seasons of between 600 and 800 people.

Its police department consisted of Chambers, Asst. Chief Fred Avalos, and between eight and 14 volunteers reserve officers not required to be licensed by TCOLE  and appointed at the discretion of the police chief.
After the audit, Chambers was told that eight of the reserve officers did not have up-to-date firearms qualifications and the department was given seven working days to correct the deficiency.

According to TCOLE agent Darry Minor's testimony during the trial, without the firearm qualification, even an otherwise licensed peace officer would not have the authority to carry a weapon.

Chambers delegated the authority to Avalos to correct the deficiency. Instead, Avalaos went to the TCOLE where he obtained a verbal promise of immunity from TCOLE and created falsified documentation of the records required by the auditor.

During the January 2015 term of a grand jury, the D.A's Office presented the records to a grand jury that indicted Chambers with 14 counts of tampering with a government record. A jury convicted Chambers after a trial on January 2016 in Judge Janet Leal's 103rd District Court. She sentenced Chambers tow two years incarceration, probated to 5 years, with a $200 fine on each count.
Chambers appealed to the 13th Court of Appeals January 29, 2016.

Chambers' appeal hinges on the fact that there is no provision for TCOLE to regulate the hiring or qualifications of volunteer reserve police officers and that there is no statutory requirements for firearms records to be kept others than those that may be required by the department or municipality who appoint them without pay. Therefore, if nor records are required, there can be no tampering violations, his lawyers argue.

Further, his attorneys charge that under the Texas Local Government Code the volunteers' standards or qualifications are set by the local government at the direction of the chief. All of the "records" that were allegedly tampered with were of volunteer reservists. They charge that the trial court erred in denying a defense motion that it instruct the jury on the distinction between and employee (coming under TCOLE's jurisdiction) and a volunteer reservist.

The Chambers indictment also charged that Chambers had "defrauded" the State of Texas and that tampering under the governmental record statute becomes a state-jail felony only if it is shown that the the defendant's intent was to defraud or harm another. In his appeal, Chambers argues that the trial jury did not have jurisdiction to hear a prosecution when the state had not shown that its pecuniary interest had been  jeopardized by his alleged conduct or had shown he had any intent to do so.

At the heart of Chamber's appeal is the fact that TCOLE is part of the executive branch which has interpreted its oversight authority over hired licensed police officers under the Texas Administrative Code to apply to unpaid volunteer reservists appointed by a police chief or municipality under the Texas Local Government Code, and who did not come under the TCOLE regulations set out in the administrative regulations.

"The TCOLE regulations exist to bring structure and consistency to the peace officers it licenses and regulates," Chambers' appeal continues. "The Local Government Code provides for a chief of police to appoint reservists not under the supervision of TCOLE. More importantly, the Local Government Code was promulgated by the Texas Legislature, whilst the TCOLE regulations were promulgated by unelected administrators of the executive branch."

There are, in fact, no firearms qualification  forms issued by TCOLE. Chambers contends that the Local Government Code controls the department's record-keeping obligations with respect to the volunteer reserve officers and that TCOLE lacks the jurisdiction to impose independent record keeping requirements for unpaid reserve officers.

"The law plainly does not contemplate TCOLE keeping requirements for the firearms qualifications of volunteer reserve peace officers," Chamber argues. "Because these records were not required by law to be kept, nor were they kept for government purposes, they are not governmental records."

A reader of the appeals record will not know the context in which the prosecution of Chambers occurred. Besides the firearms qualifications tampering charges, he was also charged with official oppression for recovering a vehicle from a former employee of his security service, a charge later dismissed.

The main investigator of the governmental records indictment was none other than Saenz's former chief of the DA's Public Integrity Unit Victor Cortez. Saenz supported his fromer PIU chief in that race. Cortez lost to Chambers in the contest for the Cameron County GOP nomination for sheriff, but Chambers was denied a place on the ballot when GOP chair Morgan Graham cited his conviction on the same charges. Cortez ended up being trashed by a 2-1 margin by Democrat incumbent Omar Lucio.

There are other political links in this story not included in the appeals documentation. Chambers had asked that Judge Leal recuse herself since she was a the owner of the office used by DA Luis Saenz's and shared it with him and Chester Gonzalez until he returned as DA.
Joseph Graham, husband of the GOP chair Morgan, shares the same office at 117 E. Price Road.