PROSECUTORS MAY HAVE ELIZONDO'S CELL PHONE SECRETS

By Juan Montoya
Add cell phone records, texts and data messages to the evidence being gathered through search warrants issued to the Cameron County District Attorney's Office on the case of indicted former Brownsville Fire Department Chief Carlos Elizondo.

Law enforcement sources say that among the search warrants granted to DA investigators besides those of his home has been  one related to the cell phones and/or other electronic devices under Elizondo's name.

If true, those records might yield incriminating information into the former fire chief's communications during critical times, such as when he might have called dispatchers to steer patient transfers to a private ambulance company instead of to the city's EMS.

And if text messages are retrieved, they could also yield invaluable information on who he was communicating with on any number of issues, including administrators and elected officials from entities like the Brownsville Independent School District, Texas Southmost College, the City of Brownsville, and other governmental entities.

And if he texted vendors with either the city or the school district, this will also be available to investigators.

"You can erase calls or texts, but they never go away," said a local attorney who has defended clients whose cell phones and computer hard drives and chips have been seized under the authority of search warrants issued by local magistrates and judges. "They can go in there and find out who you have called, when you called them, and even where you were at when you texted or called. Nothing goes away."

Now elected officials and administrators in a number of entities may be looking over their shoulders trying to remember whether they said anything compromising when they spoke with Elizondo or texted him over his cell phone.

If one remembers, it was his recording of a private conversation with City of Brownsville Commissioner Cesar de Leon where three other people were present and the "N" word was used that unleashed a raging controversy in the city. Elizondo allegedly release snippets in an attempt to discredit De Leon and divert attention from an audit of his department that showed he had steered patient transfers to a private ambulance carrier.

A grand jury indicted Elizondo on charges of Theft by a Public Official and Misappropriation of Fiduciary Property. The second charge is related to allegations by the Brownsville Firefighters Association that he had withdrawn more than $8,000 from their political action committee's bank account after he had been removed as treasurer by the Texas Ethic Commission as a sanction for not filing the PAC's reports.

Former city manager – since retired – suspended Elizondo with pay when the audit on the department was released, and later terminated him when the indictments were issued.