ELIZONDO TURNS HIMSELF IN AFTER BOLTING FROM LAWYER'S OFFICE AND BROWNSVILLE PD ISSUED ALL POINTS BULLETIN

By Juan Montoya

Carlos Elizondo, the former Brownsville Fire Chief, has been arrested and is in custody of law enforcement.

Elizondo was in the company of his attorneys Noe Garza and Victor Ramirez this afternoon when he gave himself up to Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz. He was visibly pained when news reporters and camera people asked him questions which he didn't answer and no one from the DA's Office showed up to open the locked door to the prosecutor's office. At times he faced the wall and gave his back to the camera peeking into the DA's Office awaiting someone to open the door.

(The Brownsville Herald documented the moment and included the link in its website. Click to see.)
https://youtu.be/-yKPh0zHfs4

An all-points alert had been issued for Elizondo after he fled from his lawyer Noe Garza's office after being warned that unless he came out and gave himself up officers would storm the building.

Apparently, Elizondo bolted from Garza's office before that happened and police radio dispatchers issued a bulletin to all units to apprehend him on sight.

A DA press release on their website indicated that Elizondo was charged with one charge of Theft by a Public Servant and one of Misapplication of Fiduciary Property, both third-degree felonies. Associate Judge Louis Sorola set bond of $8,500 on each.

The funds reportedly came from the Brownsville Firefighters Association Local #970's Political Action Committee's bank account after the Texas Ethics Commission had sanctioned him and removed him as treasurer in 2009. Firefighters association officers reported more than 8,000 were taken by Elizondo without authorization over the last two years he was listed as treasurer of the PAC and was president of the union.

Using those funds, reports indicate he made payments to local political workers, BISD trustee Minerva Peña for a recount in a justice of the peace race, and Grafik Spot, a sign and ad company with links to BISD trustee Cesar Lopez.

Early this morning, numerous vehicles bearing U.S. government plates and Cameron County District Attorney's Office accompanied by several units of the Brownsville Police Dept. descended at the home of  Elizondo, the Brownsville Independent School District trustee who is currently on administrative leave with pay from his position as a lieutenant in the the Brownsville Fire Dept.

This was further confirmed later in the day by members of the media including the Brownsville Herald and local broadcasters who say that agents wearing DEA and FBI jackets are at the house as this report is being written There had been no Elizondo sightings but BPD sources say he was not being held by the city. The white-haired man in he photos at Elizondo's house is the DA's Public Integrity Unit chief George Delaunay.

Delaunay did not tell reporters at the scene whether officers had a warrant for Elizondo's arrest or a  warrant to execute a search.

Reports indicated that Elizondo was not at the home when the law enforcement officers arrived. His whereabouts were unknown.

(And other reports that indicated that BISD superintendent Esperanza Zendejas and board president Cesar Lopez were seen conversing with three plain-clothes law enforcement agents at a local restaurant his morning proved groundless. It turned out to be visitors from the Dallas area.)

There is no further information available on the reason the feds and BPD officers are there. However, it does appear that they are executing a search warrant to enter and search the Elizondo home at 2994 Vanessa. However, BPD sources refused to comment on the presence of their officers at the home.

A television crew reported that the agents had entered the home a few minutes later. At least two broadcast stations were at the scene.

Previously, there have been reports that a FBI-task force was investigating  ambulance-related alleged activities of  Elizondo, who was demoted as chief  and is now a lieutenant in the department. He was then placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation into his role in steering patients to Intercity Ambulance Services to which he is personally linked.

Elizondo, who released a secretly taped recording of City Commissioner Cesar de Leon where he told him he would never harm him, not "intentionally," was placed on leave pending the results of the ambulance-related investigation, among other things.

Among some of the comments De Leon made in the tape was one where he demanded that BISD chair Lopez stop Graphic Spot from charging him $1,500 for political signs Lopez had promised to pay for him in his commissioner's race.

The DA's Office had earlier confirmed that it was investigating a criminal complaint against Elizondo by the Brownsville Firefighters Association charging Theft by a Public Official when the former chief was union president. They charge that Elizondo stole more than $8,000 in union funds through ATM withdrawals despite having been removed as the treasurer of the association's Political Action Committee.

Superintendent Zendejas has acknowledged in an email to a former purchasing administrator that the BISD's Food and Nutrition Service department was under investigation by federal agents over the use of United States Department of Agriculture funds to purchase barbacoa meat from a company that processed the meat in Mexico.

In the tape secretely recorded by the former fire chief,  Elizondo maintained he didn't know of numerous things happening in the BISD to which de Leon replied: "O eres muy pendejo o te estas haciendo pendejo," indicating he was not buying Elizondo's claims of ignorance.