by Rick Scobey

Created on: September 14, 2008

Can a person or persons be arrested, tried, found guilty, and thrown into prison, in our United States of America in this day and age? You bet! It has happened several times. This article is not about someone who was wrongfully convicted and doing time, but it is about two deputy sheriffs who were falsely accused, arrested, and placed in jail by the FBI.

The whole case was based on a bogus affidavit given by a federal prisoner who claimed that the deputies had stolen some property and/or money from him while he was in the jail where the deputies worked. The bogus affidavit was taken by an FBI agent, who apparently knew or should have known that this was a false claim.

The whole case stemmed from a conflict that existed between the FBI and members of a drug task force that worked under the authority of the DEA in the area between San Antonio, Texas and the Mexican border. The story goes that the task force busted some drug carriers and killed one of them in a fire fight along U.S Highway 35. Evidently somehow, the person arrested and the one killed were informant(s) for the FBI in the past or in this case. Unfortunately, one of the members of the task force, a deputy sheriff from neighboring county, was also killed in during the fire fight. The result: two deputies get arrested by the FBI a few months later, not for participating in the fire fight, but for some other false accusation.

How do I know what happened? I was the County Judge of the county these two deputies were from. The information I got came from the deputies themselves and an other officer who worked in the same case on that drug task force. I personally interviewed these officers off the record in order to find out what had happened. As a matter of fact, one of the other undercover officers later ran for county sheriff and won four straight four-year terms after this fiasco was over. The deputies that were falsely arrested were exonerated after a terrible ordeal. However, they suffered uselessly.

These two deputies went through hell for a whole year while they waited for their trial in federal district court. They and their families were subjected to the worst hell anyone can go through in a community. They were suspended from their jobs for the whole year. Their friends thought the worst about them. They got scared sick to think that they might go to federal prison due to a bogus case filed against them apparently by the FBI.

The county commissioners and I were involved in the action taken as a county concerning their salary. The sheriff immediately suspended, but commissioners' court decided to place their pay in escrow in the event that they would be found innocent. If not, then their salary of twenty five thousand dollars would remain property of the county. Yes! It can happen to anyone here in the USA!

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