Ex-captain attacks repairman for electoral fraud: TX DA
The former captain was charged with aggravated assault in December 2020.
Former Houston police captain indicted by jury after he was accused of taking a repairman off the road and holding him at gunpoint because he believed the repairman was involved in an electoral fraud scheme, the district attorney said in a press release.
Mark Aguirre, 64, first approached authorities with allegations of a Harris County electoral fraud conspiracy, but was instead charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in December 2020, the statement said. .
Aguirre’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
An affidavit first showed Aguirre came to the police in September 2020 to report a “massive” voter fraud scheme he was investigating. Aguirre was no longer working with the Houston Police Department at this point, the statement said.
“I am currently involved in an investigation related to a large program to collect fraudulent ballots in Harris County to rig elections in the Houston / Harris County area,” Aguirre said in a Sept. 27, 2020 affidavit “This scheme involves large-scale electoral fraud.”
Aguirre, who said he was a private investigator after retiring from the police force, later told authorities he was “Monitor” for four days on a man he believed to be the “mastermind” of the voting system, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office. According to Aguirre, the air conditioning repairman had 750,000 fraudulent ballots in the back of a truck he was driving.
The former captain was following the man on October 19, 2020, when he hit the man’s truck with his SUV to force the repairman to stop and get out of the truck, officials said.
“When the technician got out of the truck, Aguirre pointed a handgun at the technician, forced him to the ground and put his knee on the man’s back – an image captured on the camera worn on the man’s body. ‘a policeman,’ the statement said. .
When officers searched, they found the truck was stocked with air conditioning parts and tools, but no mail-in ballots.
“He crossed the line from dirty politics to the commission of a violent crime and we are lucky no one has been killed,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in the December statement. 2020. “His alleged investigation was back from the start – first alleging that a crime had taken place, then attempting to prove it had occurred. “
An investigation found that Aguirre was paid $ 266,400 by the Houston-based Liberty Center for God and Country, a group of private citizens investigating suspected voter fraud. More than $ 210,000 of that amount was deposited into his account the day after the repairman’s assault, the statement said.
Aguirre’s allegations of electoral fraud were deemed “baseless” by investigators, the statement said.
“Aguirre victimized an innocent man,” District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a Dec. 15 tweet. “He made this victim feel that he was going to die. And the guy wasn’t involved in any type of voter fraud, but instead it was just an air conditioning repairman with a box truck.
If found guilty, Aguirre faces up to 20 years in prison.