DONNA, TEXAS
Two former elected members of the School Board of Donna, Texas, and a private citizen who served as a middleman were sentenced Monday for accepting bribes in connection with a services contract held by the Donna Independent School District, officials said.
Eloy Infante, 54, Elpidio Yanez Jr., 45, and Adrian Guerrero, 50, all from Donna, were sentenced to 46 months, 37 months and 18 months in prison, respectively.
The defendants pleaded guilty in January 2016 to attempted interference with commerce by extortion.
Infante and Yanez were both members of the Donna School Board when they committed the attempted extortion, according to officials.
In connection with their pleas, the defendants admitted that from February to May 2015, they attempted to extort, and solicited and accepted bribes from, an individual whose company provided services to the school district, officials said.
Specifically, the defendants informed the individual that in order for his company to keep its services contract with the school district, he needed to pay Infante and Yanez $10,000 each, they admitted, officials said.
Both Infante and Yanez admitted that they accepted partial payment of the bribes and Guerrero admitted that he served as the middleman for one of the payments.