GRACIA INVOLVED IN ALL SHERIFF DEPARTMENT LAWSUITS

 By Juan Montoya

An amended complaint by Jose Calvillo, a jailer who claims he was fired over his alleged support for new Cameron County Sheriff Eric Garza and a petition by Chief Deputy Robert Gracia for the county to pay for his legal defense in federal court has exposed the deep rift and political turmoil wracking the department.

Calvillo claims he was the victim of political retaliation and alleged adverse employment action  based on his perceived political association with Gracia and Garza that resulted in his wrongful termination. He had been a jailer for the past six years claims Lucio, Sgt. Edgar Rivera, and Lt. Joe Elizardi retaliated against him while acting and took adverse action motivated by political association that resulted in his wrongful termination. He sued them in federal court in their official and individual capacities. 

The lawsuit was filed December 30, 2020. 

He is asked for the court to award him $1 million in exemplary damages for their acts in their official capacity, and $333,000 each of the defendants in their individual capacity.

But now instead of just naming the three defendants above he – through his attorney John Shergold – has now included two other officers who he said took part in an interrogation over a leaked video that allegedly showed a jailer in the Lucio administration beating an inmate in jail. The other two officers named in Calvillo's amended petition are Sergeant Rodrigo Almanza and Captain Javier Reyna, both sued in their individual and official capacity.

This is where Abbott would have asked Costello: "Yeah, but who's on first?" 

That's because both Almanza and Reyna – in turn – have sued Garza and Gracia in their official and individual capacity in federal court for allegedly retaliating against them because they campaigned and supported Lucio politically in the election.

And how does Gracia fit in?

Gracia was not only sued by Reyna and Almanza in federal court, but also by Cameron County in state court for unilaterally taking over the courthouse security budget under the commissioners court. The county claims that the security budget – and 15 sheriff deputies and constables – are funded by that budget under their control. In unilaterally taking possession of the courthouse and the courts, they claim that he and Garza overstepped his authority when he attempted to take control of the deputies and the bailiffs funded by the budget.

Gracia's motion before 445th District Court Judge Gloria Rincones  asks the court to intervene against the county for denying him a legal defense in connection with Almanza's federal lawsuit.

He claims that the county was retaliating against him in denying him a legal defense in Almanza's lawsuit in federal court since it was directed at both Garza and himself. In denying paying for his defense in federal court, he claims the alleged county retaliation as "was illegal, arbitrary, and capricious."

The county, in refusing to defend Gracia in Almanza's lawsuit in federal court over what he claims was retaliation for him supporting Lucio, claimed that Gracia was not a county employee at the time, was not a peace officer certified by the Texas Commission On Law Enforcement (T-COLE), had no authority over department employees, or was authorized to have access to sensitive criminal investigations, including the case used by the defendants over the alleged leaking of the video.

At the time, Gracia was not listed as an employee of Cameron County, and did not meet the job listing requirements for state certification. He then failed to pas the T-COLE certification exam and had to retake it. Since he didn't meet the job listing requirements, he was not acting lawfully as a county employee, the commissioners argued. It wasn't until mid-March that Gracia was certified as a peace officer in Texas.

But back to Calvillo's initial lawsuit in federal court. The jailer's amended complaint claims that the defendants (Lucio, Rivera, Elizardi, Almanza and Reyna) wrongfully fired him after they blamed him charged him with passing on the inmate-beating video to Gracia – his stepfather's close friend – and that they never told him he was being investigated for a crime. 

During his interrogation, he claims the defendants seized his cellphone and used text messages between him and Gracia to charge he had been the leak of the sensitive video to help Garza defeat Lucio in the election.

Almaza claims that when Gracia was "appointed" by Garza as chief deputy he demanded that he reveal his contacts in Mexico law enforcement, and allow him to review his investigation files. Among those files was included the investigation of Calvillo's alleged leak of information to him. Was Gracia looking for details of the Almanza investigation of his alleged receipt of the inmate video from Calvillo?

In turn, Gracia counters in his petition for intervention that as of January 1 he was serving "at the appointment of Sheriff Garza, and carried out Sheriff Garza’s instruction to overtake courthouse security." By not providing them a legal defense in their individual capacities and Gracia in both his individual and official capacity, Gracia says the county is retaliating against him.

He is asking Rincones to order the county to provide him with a legal defense on the Almanza lawsuit in federal court and also that he was forced to retain the services of attorneys to represent him alleging that the commissioners denial of a legal defense and reimbursement "was illegal, arbitrary, and capricious."