Here’s some more news on the indictments handed down by a South Texas grand jury against Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, State Sen. Eddie Lucio, and others.
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra himself had been under indictment for more than a year and half before a judge dismissed the indictments last month. This flurry of charges came in the twilight of Guerra’s tenure, which ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.
Cheney’s indictment on a charge of engaging in an organized criminal activity criticizes the vice president’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.
You can see a copy of the indictment here (PDF).
Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.
Another indictment released Tuesday accuses state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio’s prison consulting early last year.
Lucio’s attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.
“Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong,” Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.
Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility, just four days before de la Rosa’s scheduled release.
In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa’s family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzalez indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.
Vince and XicanoPwr, among many others, have more. You can also find related information at the SEIU’s Eye on Wackenhut blog. This ought to be quite the circus, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.
UPDATE: More on the detention center in question.