TEXAS
A federal grand jury indicted two Donna, Texas, school board members on bribery and attempted extortion charges in connection with a services contract held by the Donna Independent School District, officials said.
A private citizen who served as a middleman in the scheme also was charged.
Eloy Infante, 53, Elpidio Yanez Jr., 45, and Adrian Guerrero, 50, all from Donna, were charged in a four-count indictment returned on Oct. 27 with one count of conspiracy, one count of attempted extortion and two counts of federal programs bribery.
Infante and Yanez are both members of the Donna School Board and Guerrero is a private citizen.
The crimes occurred from February 2015 through May 2015, and the defendants allegedly attempted to extort, and solicited and accepted bribes from, an individual whose company provided services to the school district.
Specifically, the indictment alleges that the defendants informed the individual that, in order for his company to keep its contract with the school district, he needed to pay Infante and Yanez $10,000 each. The indictment alleges that both Infante and Yanez accepted partial payment of the $10,000, and that Guerrero served as the middleman for one of the payments.
The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.