OFFICER USED TO CHARGE CHAMBERS LOSES FELONY CONVICTIONS APPEAL

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The Texas 13th Court of Appeals has upheld the convictions for misuse of public information of  

Alfredo Avalos, the man who was the main witness used by prosecutors to indict John Chambers, former Republican candidate for Cameron County Sheriff, for tampering with a government document, i.e., of falsifying his reserves' weapon certifications.

The court issued its findings Wednesday, Dec. 18.

Avalos – a lieutenant with the Bishop Police Department in 2019 – was indicted September 15, 2021, on two counts of the offense of misuse of official information, a third-degree felony. A jury convicted Avalos of both counts of misuse of official information. He withdrew his request for jury punishment and the Cameron County District Attorney recommended community supervision for a period of five years with a $2,000 fine. Defense counsel requested two years’ community supervision without the assessment of a fine. 

The trial court ultimately sentenced appellant to three years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutions Division, probated his sentence, and placed him on community supervision for a period of four years. with a  $1,000 fine. 

Avalos had a police records staffer use the Texas Law Enforcement Communications System (“TLETS”) to run two license plate searches and he performed a master query for all vehicle information available through TLETS, which includes the Texas Crime Information Center (“TCIC”), the Texas Department of Insurance database, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicle database, and the National Crime Information Center (“NCIC”). 

Because TLETS obtains information from the Texas Department of Insurance database, the results of the query included insurance policy and coverage information. 

Avalos then used the information to investigate a man who had become his ex-wife's mate and visited his parents' house where he introduced himself as a police officer to his mother and had wanted to tell Hernandez that he knew he was still married and that he was looking out for his ex and the mother of his son, because Hernandez was dragging his son into his affair and was a “bad person”. 

Before leaving the home, Avalos stated that he was going to run the license plates on two parked vehicles in order to “know who they are.” He then used his cell phone to ask the records employee to  run both license plates. 

Detective Juan Alvarez, a thirty-one-year veteran of the Brownsville Police Department, testified that appellant’s use of information “accessible to him by his job for nongovernmental purposes and for personal reasons” constituted “sufficient grounds” to believe that he had committed the offense of misuse of official information. A jury agreed and convicted him on the two felonies. 

Avalos, through his attorney Phil Cowen, appealed the convictions to the 13th Court of Appeals on technical grounds that the state was wrong when it asserted that a “rational trier of...fact could have found the essential elements of misuse of official information beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence and reasonable inferences from that evidence.

He also charged that the state apparently glossed over the specific references to how the...void for vagueness challenge concerning (certain sections) that they claim was "unconstitutional  as applied” to Avalos.

After granting the motion for review, the justices concluded that the review was "improvidently granted" and dismissed his motion for review.

With Avalos being the main witness against him on the documents case in 2016, Chambers was sentenced to one year probation and fined $1,400 on June 2021.

"Avalos fabricated his story about me," Chambers said, when told of the appeals' court decision. "Now his felony convictions were upheld (which) shows that he is a habitual liar and does things for his own personal gain."