Exclusive: The Inside Story Behind The Arrests Of The Socorro School Board Members

Editor’s note: Gabriela Castellano provided El Paso News with about 400 pages of documents, video and audio recordings in March. After we notified her in March that we would not be pursuing her story at that time, she responded via text message that we “can use my information to help your case against EP Matters.” Because of Thursday’s arrests and because of the public interest we are adding context to the headlines using those documents.

On November 8, 2023, Gabriela Castellano reached out to El Paso News wanting to share with us her story of what she alleges was El Paso Matters “continue[s] targeting us in their stories but don’t even mention the TEA audit.” Castellano added that “El Paso Matters turned us into criminals even though nothing came out of the investigation on us.” Gabriela Castellano added that as “the investigations based on our whistle-blower reporting” were coming to light, El Paso Matters continued to target her and her husband. She was referring to the release of a TEA Special Investigation report that was recently released.

On Thursday, Socorro Independent School Trustee Pablo Barrera was arrested by El Paso Sheriff’s deputies. Barrera was arrested on five charges, including improper influence, obstruction or retaliation, and coercion of a public servant or voter. According to online booking records, the first offense was alleged to have occurred on July 1, 2022 with other offenses listed on May 30, 2022. Barrera was released later in the day on four $500 bonds each and an additional bond for $4,000 on the obstruction and retaliation charges.

Also arrested on Thursday were Gabriela and Ricardo Castellano. Ricardo Castellano was arrested on two charges of obstruction or retaliation. He was released later in the day on a $4,000 bond, according to the online booking records. Gabriela Castellano was also arrested and released Thursday. She is charged with two counts of obstruction or retaliation. She posted a $4,000 bond as well.

After initially contacting us in November, Gabriela reached out to us again on March 24, 2024. We asked her to provide us with any documentation regarding her allegations against Socorro school district officials, the Texas Rangers and El Paso Matters. The next day, Gabriela Castellano provided us with over 400 pages of documents, emails, plus voice recordings and video, which she told us showed a conspiracy against her and her husband by the school district and El Paso Matters.

While reviewing the information she provided us, most of the allegations she had made were published online by Max Grossman on El Paso Taxpayer Revolt. We informed her on March 27 that we would not be pursuing the story at the time because we had little to add to what Max Grossman had reported.

However, considering the Thursday arrests, we felt the information provided by Gabriela Castellano would provide important context to the allegations being made by officials and the Castellanos.

Castellanos Allege Whistle Blower Retaliation

When Gabriela Castellano contracted us in November, she was looking to see if we would be interested in reporting on allegations that the Socorro Independent School District (SISD) was retaliating against her and her husband. She told us that they she had whistleblower status because she was exposing malfeasance by school officials.

Castellano provided us several documents she told us would provide proof of the retaliation she and her husband have endured. We have compiled what the documents show in chronological order.

School Superintendent José Espinoza’s Resignation

In May 2021, Ricardo Castellano unseated Angelica Rodriguez with 48% to 43% of the vote for the Socorro School District, District 3 board seat. Days after Castellano unseated Rodriguez, Socorro Independent School District (SISD) Superintendent José Espinoza resigned. (see note 1) Two new board members, including Castellano, were elected to the SISD board a few days before. Pablo Barrera, who was also arrested yesterday, was the other new school board member. Espinoza noted in his statement about his resignation that “he understood a new board majority may want to hire its own superintendent.” As part of his resignation, Espinoza accepted a settlement of $629,308 from SISD. His contract was not set to expire until 2025. Barrera and Castellano were sworn on May 12, 2021, after Espinoza had resigned.

In response to Espinoza’s resignation, Castellano told the El Paso Times that the board needed “to ensure there’s integrity” on the board, and that the school board members “don’t turn around and try to cover things up and do things that are subpar and then try to bury it.”

The Whataburger Head-Butt Incident

On June 13, 2019, Espinoza had been involved in an altercation at a Whataburger in San Antonio with Ysleta Independent School District (YISD) superintendent Xavier De La Torre. No charges were filed in the incident. According to the San Antonio Police Department’s incident report, a little after midnight on June 13, 2019, Xavier De La Torre, “head-butted” Espinoza outside of a San Antonio Whataburger. The police report adds that De La Torre “displayed multiple signs of intoxication.”

On July 30, 2019, the Ysleta School Board suspended De La Torre for three days without pay for not reporting the incident to the school board. Although acknowledging the incident documented in the San Antonio Police report, the board unanimously voted for the three-day suspension because De La Torre did not advise “the board promptly about the incident in question,” according to Vice President Richard Couder’s description of the disciplinary action at the meeting.

In February, De La Torre’s contract was extended until June 2029 without a pay increase. He has been superintendent of YISD since 2014.

Socorro Graduates Students Who Failed Requirements

On April 18, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) appointed two conservators to help manage the Socorro Independent School District after receiving several complaints. A TEA Special Investigative Report was released in mid-March.

According to the report, TEA opened an investigation into the school district after “multiple complaints filed in February and March 2020” were received. The TEA report states that an internal 2019 Graduation Audit Final showed that “multiple SISD high school students graduated without meeting all state and local requirements.” Additionally, the report found that “three (3) trustees violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.” Because of the pandemic, the TEA paused their investigation until March 19, 2021, when they notified then-school superintendent Cynthia Najera and Espinosa that a special investigation was launched. As TEA was investigating the allegations of improper graduations and the conflict of interest, it received additional information alleging unauthorized use of district funds and misuse of special education funds.

In its final report, the TEA agreed with SISD that it had improperly graduated 276 students in 2019. TEA’s second finding concluded that trustee Paul Guerra, whose term expires next year, failed to disclose a conflict of interest with a vendor.

Dear reader, I hope you appreciate this article. Before reading more, I ask that you consider my work and make a small donation to help keep this publication open for everyone. El Paso lacks news diversity. I offer 20+ years of historical knowledge about El Paso’s politics and public policy. Media diversity matters. Make a small donation today to help keep my work going for another 20+ years. Thank you.

San Antonio-based Insco Distributing became a vendor for SISD in 2015, five years after Guerra became a trustee. The TEA found that Guerra had been listed as the point of contact for the company in a bid they submitted in September 2021. While the board was deliberating the bid on October 19, 2021, Guerra “participated in the deliberations,” the TEA found. Although Guerra abstained on the vote, the TEA concluded that he improperly participated in the deliberations.

In a third allegation, the TEA found that SISD “paid unauthorized stipend(s) to staff members.” According to the TEA, 246 SISD staff members were paid “approximately $283,000 in unauthorized stipends” between 2016 and 2022.

The alleged violations of the open meetings law and that SISD misused special education funds between 2019 and 2022 were not sustained by the TEA.

The TEA report includes Addendum Q, which lists 11 additional allegations that they received during their investigation that resulted in the TEA report.

Pablo Barrera

A June 4, 2021 complaint filed with the TEA alleged that Pablo Barrera “harassed” an unnamed school district teacher. According to the TEA, Barrera confronted a teacher because Barrera’s student had not been admitted to magnet program.

A second complaint received on January 10, 2023 by the TEA as “an internal referral” requesting an investigation into an audio recording where Barrera and Ricardo Castellano are heard “discussing engaging in board overreach and retaliation against Gabriela Castellano’s school principal.

Gabriela Castellano

According to the TEA, it received an allegation on August 22, 2021, from Gabriela Castellano, Ricardo Castellano’s wife, where she alleged that the “principal at her campus of employment reprimanded her as retaliation for going to district administrators with campus concerns.” Gabriela Castellano alleged in her complaint that her principal reprimanded her on an “alleged failure to provide lesson plans for days that she was absent and for violating district policy in letting her husband, the board trustee, gain access to the campus without completing visitor protocols.”

In a December 16, 2021, complaint, an unidentified principal alleged that Gabriela Castellano “threatened” her.

On September 20, 2022, the TEA received a second complaint from Gabriela Castellano where she alleged that the interim superintendent had “ordered law enforcement to intimidate” her and her husband at a game. She further alleged that “another board member” at the game “stared at her ‘with anger’.”

Ricardo Castellano

A complaint the TEA received on June 4, 2021 alleged that Ricardo Castellano “threatened and bullied a district administrator. According to the allegation, Castellano and his wife told the unnamed administrator that they needed to “be on board with the new leadership otherwise we would die.”

In the December 16, 2021 complaint filed by a school principal against Gabriela Castellano also alleged that Ricardo Castellano “refused to complete visitor protocols when entering the campus and was there almost daily during instructional time.”

On November 28, 2022, Ricardo Castellano submitted a complaint to the TEA alleging “that the board violated its own board policies in placing and removing items from the board agenda.”

On January 10, 2023, the TEA received “an internal referral to investigate an audio recording of Ricardo Castellano and Pablo Barrera “discussing engaging in board overreach and retaliation against the principal” of the school where Gabriela Castellano worked.

Other Allegations Received By TEA

Another complaint received by the TEA on February 23, 2022 alleges that “board of trustees stated in front of board meeting attendees that they voted down proposed hiring candidates because of a personal issue with the interim superintendent.”

On November 28, 2022, an unnamed community member alleged that the “superintendent of Socorro ISD called law enforcement to come to the district offices when parents, including an unnamed school board trustee, came to discuss an issue.”

A January 30, 2023 complaint submitted by a parent accused the school district of misappropriating Career and Technical Education funds.”

Another complaint received by the TEA on September 23, 2023 alleged that officials participated in “walking quorums” in violation of the Texas Open Meeting law.

The TEA’s addendum explained that the complaints were not “fully investigated,” but that the complaints were “resolved through settlement and therefore investigations will not be completed.”

The Gabriela Castellano Documents

On March 24, 2024, Gabriela Castellano provided El Paso News with numerous documents. From those documents we have developed a chronological list of events leading up to Thursday’s arrests.

After the pandemic, on January 2021, SISD teachers returned to the classrooms to teach. According to a SISD employee complaint form filed by Gabriela Castellano on August 23, 2021, on July 19, 2021 when she returned to in-person teaching she came in close contact with another teacher that tested positive for COVID-19 on July 27. Castellano wrote in her complaint that she went to her principal, Gabriela Elliott, to ask “why she had not notified” the teachers about a colleague testing positive for COVID, as the “SISD COVID handbook required her to do.” According to the complaint, Elliott responded that “there is no protocol or quarantine for employees,” who test positive.

Castellano notes on her complaint that she “reported the incident” to her husband, Ricardo Castellano, who had just been elected as a school board trustee. Gabriela Castellano added in her complaint that Elliott “sent an email to the staff notifying them” of the COVID case the following day.

From that moment, Gabriela Castellano writes that Elliott, her principal, began retaliating against her, including issuing a reprimand for having her husband on campus.

The August 10, 2021 Audio Recording

On January 12, 2023, KFOX reported that the Texas Rangers were investigating the Socorro Independent School District based on a telephone recording between Pablo Barrera and Ricardo Castellano.

The school district released the audio recording. Gabriela Castellano provided us with a copy of the recording with the documents she sent us.

Partial recording between Pable Barrera, Ricardo Castellano with Gabriela Castellano interjecting. Warning, the audio contains some explicit language.

The original reporting on the recording was released by El Paso Matters’ Molly Smith on December 22, 2022.

The August 10, 2021 audio recording is about 30 hours long and includes conversations between Pablo Barrera and Ricardo Castellano as well as intimate recordings of the Castellanos at their home. On August 30, 2021, Gabriela Castellano mailed the recording to SISD’s Human Resources Department as part of her grievances against the school district.

Smith’s report points out that “Ricardo Castellano narrowly unseated longtime Trustee Angelica Rodriguez” in May 2021, adding that Rodriguez “was part of a majority faction that enjoyed consecutive years of control” over SISD. Smith goes on to add that Barerra and Castellano changed “the balance of power” when they were elected in 2021.

The recording revealed that Barrera and Castellano were taking credit for superintendent José Espinoza’s resignation because of the change in the board’s balance of power with the election of Barrera and Castellano. Barrera is heard saying “we’re school board gods.”

Barrera and Castellano opposed the appointment of Marta Carmona as the interim superintendent after Espinoza’s resignation. The current superintendent, Nate Carmen, was appointed in February 2022.

With less than two months as the interim superintendent, the audio reveals that Castellano wanted Carmona to act against Gabriela Elliott, the school principal that Castellano’s wife had filed grievances against.

In her El Paso Matters report, Molly Smith wrote that what led to the recording was that Gabriela Castellano was “incensed” about an August 10, 2021 meeting where Gabriela was reprimanded by Gabriela Elliott, her principal and an assistant principal. It is unclear from where Smith draws the “incensed” characterization about Gabriela Castellano, only to insinuate that Castellano’s grievances against her principal may be the reason for her to be “incensed.”

Trouble between Castellano and Elliott appears to have begun in April 2021 when SISD school officials began to mandate “in school” instruction after the pandemic. Although Elliott and Castellano do not appear to have direct communication until August 2021, it is the return to in school classrooms that appears to be the genesis of the problems between Castellano and her principal.

Although Smith references the August 30, 2021 email where Castellano included the audio file, Smith never details in her reporting the numerous other complaints Castellano had submitted to SISD where she documented alleged retaliation actions against her, including the August 10 complaint filed by Castellano where she detailed at least a dozen detailed accounts of alleged retaliation by her principal against her. Smith consolidates Castellano’s multiple grievances as “incensed” without providing context. On August 22, eight days before Smith’s report was published, Castellano asked SISD for the process of filing a whistleblower grievance.

In addition to grievances accusing her principal of retaliation, Castellano also accused her of misusing federal funds.

The Bill Sybert School Fraud Allegation

In August 2021, Gabriela Castellano submitted a complaint against her principal at Bill Sybert School, Gabriela Elliott. Castellano alleged that Elliot was misusing federal funds by using specialized teacher support staff, funded by federal funds, to provide services outside of their job duties. In her various complaint correspondence, Gabriela Castellano declared herself “a WHISTLE BLOWER” and requested “protection against any type of retaliation.”

On February 15, the Socorro Independent School District Human Resources Department released an Overview / Summary of the Investigation report of “fraud, abuse, and waste against Gabriela Elliott,” the principal of Bill Sybert School. The allegation stems from employees helping or working outside the scope of their jobs in support of other employees. The HR department “did not find any evidence” that any staff was “being used in a manner that falls into the level of Fraud, Abuse, or Waste of Federal Funds by Ms. Elliott.”

Castellano continued to file open records requests and escalating her grievances against SISD, including Elliott at least until March 3, 2022. Castellano filed several open records requests after the Texas Rangers confiscated her telephone in March.

The Texas Rangers Detain Gabriela Castellanos At Her School

According to an El Paso Police incident report dated March 9, 2022, El Paso Police officers were dispatched for an assault call where they met with Gabriela and Ricardo Castellano at their home. The narrative of the incident, as relayed to the police officers by Gabriela and Ricardo Castellano, says that in the morning of March 9, SISD police officers asked Gabriela to “step out of her classroom and into the hallway.” There, Texas Ranger Juan Torrez “ordered the S.I.S.D officers to take her phone.” Gabriela Castellano “said she refused to give her cell phone to the S.I.S.D. officers without a warrant.”

Gabriela reported that the “Texas Ranger told her he did not need a warrant to confiscate her phone as she was under investigation for harassment.” After refusing to give up her phone without a warrant, “two male S.I.S.D officers grabbed her by the arms, squeezing her biceps a Texas Ranger Torres removed her cell phone from her hands.” (see note 2)

The El Paso Police officers noted in their report that Gabriela Castellano “was visibly upset and was crying and shaking.” They also noted that Gabriela “suffered contusions to her [sic] both her biceps.” Her injuries were photographed, states the police report.

Ricardo Castellano told the police officers that as a school trustee he was “currently investigating the school district for corruption.” Noted in a supplement to the police report on May 12, 2022, Gabriela Castellano added that another “undercover Texas Ranger” was at the scene “was wearing a body camera on a lanyard around his neck and the incident should have been captured by the video camera.” She added that “no warrant was ever shown to her.”

A Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers Report of Investigation report states that the Texas Rangers opened an investigation against the Castellanos on May 20, 2022. However, the synopsis of the investigation states that on March 8, 2022, Texas Ranger Juan Torrez “was assigned by the El Paso District Attorney’s Office to open an investigation.”

The next day, the Texas Rangers confiscated Gabriela’s cellphone outside of her classroom. Ricardo Castellano was being investigated on allegations of “Official Oppression.” Gabriela, according to the Texas Ranger report was being investigated on allegations of “Stalking.”

On March 8, 2022, when Torrez writes that he was assigned to investigate by the El Paso District Attorney’s office, the El Paso District Attorney at the time was Yvonne Rosales. Rosales resigned in November and Bill Hicks, the current DA, was appointed in December.

Before her resignation as the district attorney, Rosales accused Bob Moore of conspiring to have her removed from office.

On June 9, 2022, Molly Smith, reporting for El Paso Matters, was first to report that the Texas Rangers were investigating the Castellanos. Smith references the Texas Rangers’ May 20, 2022 investigative report. KVIA added Smith’s reporting to its website the same day. According to Smith, then-spokesperson for the DA’s office, Paul Ferris stated that Rosales’ office “never requested or assigned” Torrez to investigate the Castellanos. Smith adds that Ferris told her that it was the County Attorney’s office that assigned Torrez to investigate the Castellanos.

The County Attorney at the time was Jo Anne Bernal. In January 2023, Bernal announced that she would not be seeking reelection to her office. Bernal plans to retire in June to allow Christina Sanchez to assume the office she won in the March Primaries, six months early.

The County Attorney’s “duties and responsibilities,” according to its website does not include prosecuting school officials. It’s prosecuting duties are limited to prosecuting cases “affecting families and children such as juvenile crime, child and elder abuse, mental health, and family violence.”

The Texas Government Code on County Attorneys outlines the responsibilities of the County Attorney in different counties. Section 45.171 states that the El Paso County Attorney “primary duty” is “to represent the state, El Paso County, and the officials of El Paso County in all civil matters pending before the courts of El Paso County and any other courts in which the state, the county, or the officials of the county have matters pending.” The Code adds that the El Paso “county attorney has the powers, duties, and privileges relating to the prosecution of misdemeanors that relate to health and environmental matters and that relate to the prosecution of misdemeanors under Section 32.42, Penal Code.”

It adds, however that, “at the request of the district attorney, the county attorney may assist the district attorney in criminal cases in El Paso County.”

What remains unclear is whether Yvonne Rosales, who was still the District Attorney at the time but was being investigated by Jo Anne Bernal criminally, would have asked the county attorney’s office to investigate the Castellanos. A plain reading of the Texas Code suggests that the County Attorney does not have the unilateral authority to request the Texas Rangers to investigate school officials.

Molly Smith reported that the county attorney’s office told her that they do not “comment on matters that may or may not be under investigation by law enforcement,” leaving the unanswered question on who ordered the Texas Rangers investigation. However, among the Texas Rangers’ responsibilities include “misconduct and corruption of public officials.”

El Paso Matters’ Molly Smith published a report on December 22, 2022. where she details excerpts of an over 30-hour audio recording that includes a conversation between Pablo Barrera and Ricardo Castellano. The recording was recorded by Gabriela Castellano and was submitted to SISD by her as part of her grievances. Smith labeled Gabriela in her report as a “disgruntled teacher.”

Although Smith reports on a 2016 internal investigation of Castellano about her behavior at another campus, Smith offers no details about Castellano’s numerous grievances she had filed previously against her current principal. Instead, Smith writes that “Gabriela Castellano was reassigned from Bill Sybert School to James P. Butler Elementary sometime after being placed on administrative leave” after the incident with the Texas Rangers. At no point in her writeup does Smith offer any details about the grievances of retaliation filed by Castellano which add context to the incident with the Texas Rangers and, possibly, her reassignment, in addition to a reduction in pay caused by the reassignment. Smith’s omissions bolster her characterization of Castellano being a “disgruntled teacher” because she neglects to add the context of several instances that Castellano alleged on official documents.

It is not known if Smith knew of the documented acts of retaliation that Castellano made although the fact that Smith had submitted several open records requests before her story likely included copies of several documents where Castellano alleged instances of retaliation.

Dear reader, I hope you appreciate this article. Before reading more, I ask that you consider my work and make a small donation to help keep this publication open for everyone. El Paso lacks news diversity. I offer 20+ years of historical knowledge about El Paso’s politics and public policy. Media diversity matters. Make a small donation today to help keep my work going for another 20+ years. Thank you.

El Paso Matters

At the heart of Gabriela Castellano’s allegations against El Paso Matters, Molly Smith and Bob Moore is that she believes that Moore is targeting her, and her husband through omission and a focused use of their names when reporting problems at SISD. It is important to remember that what the TEA report documented as issues at SISD in their primary report does not include allegations against the Castellanos and much of what transpired at SISD during the reporting period was before Ricardo Castellano was elected.

It isn’t until the four-page Appendix Q where the Castellanos are mentioned in the TEA report. TEA’s special investigation report is 36 pages long. Moreover, the four-page appendix states that the 11 complaints are “a number of additional” complaints during their investigation. The appendix adds that the complaints were not “fully investigated” and that the complaints “were resolved through settlements.”

Nonetheless, El Paso Matters chose to use one of the allegations listed in the appendix to state that the “TEA opened this investigation on Jan. 10, 2023, about three weeks after El Paso Matters published a story about the recording.” What the appendix says is that complaint IRQ2023-01-002 (Appendix item IX) was opened on January 10, 2023 by “staff within” TEA, who “made an internal referral to investigate an audio recording.” Although TEA makes clear that the appendix complaints were “resolved through settlement” and that “investigations will not be completed,” the Matters reporter, Claudia Lorena Silva leaves open the impression that the investigation is ongoing, when TEA clearly states that it was closed without an investigation.

It is Silva’s story that likely led to a telephone call between the Castellanos and Claudia Silva on March 22. The Castellanos recorded the interview.

Recording Of El Paso Matters Interview Of Castellanos

Among the documents that Gabriela Castellano sent us included a telephone recording of an interview between them and El Paso Matters reporter Claudia Lorena Silva recorded on March 22, 2024. That day El Paso Matters published a report on the TEA investigation by Claudia Lorena Silva.

Silva’s report on El Paso Matters focused on the TEA report.

The recording appears to start soon after the telephone conversation began between Silva and Ricardo Castellano. Castellano tells Silva that they “now we want to speak out, so the people understand that we are here to help the people, and we were retaliated against in a horrible way.”

During the telephone conversation with Silva, the Castellanos pointed out to the reporter that if you are going to report on us, “do your homework.” Molly Smith, who wrote the December 22, 2022 report about the recording had submitted multiple open records requests with SISD asking for documents from or to Gabriela Castellano.

Gabriela Castellano provided us with copies of ten open records requests submitted to SISD requesting information about her. Four of the requests were from Molly Smith for El Paso Matters. In addition to Smith, there were requests from the Socorro Education Association, Tony Rodriguez (KFOX/CBS4), Angelica Soto (see note 3), Rudy Campoya (see note 4), John Townsend (KFOXTV) and Carlos Alvarez (Entravision). Smith requested copies of the grievances filed Gabriela (June 9, 2022), all payments made to Gabriela (September 21, 2022), all documents “summarizing Gabriela Castellano’s work history” (September 21, 2022), emails between Gabriela and Marta Carmona, Thomas Redinger and the Castellanos, (June 3, 2022).

Smith had submitted her open records requests prior to her December 22, 2022 report where she detailed the contents of the August 10, 2021 recording of Barrera and the Castellanos.

The Castellanos wanted El Paso Matters to add full context to their reporting. Smith has since left El Paso Matters and is now with the San Antonio Express-News.

What the Castellanos were asking was for El Paso Matters to include the grievances that Gabriela had filed with SISD officials to show that she was being retaliated against and the actions taken by her husband, Ricardo and Barrera at the school board, including the fact that the allegations sustained in the TEA investigation happened before they were elected to office.

Since August 2021, Gabriella Castellano had been filing grievances against school officials under the Texas Whistleblower Act. An email to SISD HR interim chief on August 22, 2021, Gabriela Castellano asked for the process to file a whistleblower grievance.

During the conversation, Silva tells the Castellanos, that “my boss,” Bob Moore said that “we don’t really want to relitigate some of the things that happened back with Molly’s reporting.” Silva added that she needed to talk to Bob Moore, because “ultimately it wasn’t her decision on what gets published.”

In ending the telephone conversation, Silva told the Castellanos that she would be meeting with her editors to see about updating their reporting with any additional information.

We reached out to Claudia Silva and Bob Moore yesterday via email asking for a comment on whether Silva followed up with Moore or any editor and what the outcome was. We have not received a response from either. We will update this story should we receive a response.

Most of the information about SISD’s troubles have emanated from El Paso Matters, with the El Paso Times republishing a March 22 article by Silva on March 27 in its print edition. (see note 5) The Times has republished Silva’s El Paso Matters stories about SISD at least three times, on March 8, April 7 and April 11. It appears that the coverage about SISD’s problems by the El Paso Times are Silva’s articles on El Paso Matters.

El Paso Matters recently announced that it and Silva received various awards from the Texas Managing Editors (TME). Silva, who focuses on the schools, was awarded second place Star Investigative Reporter of the Year and third place Star Online Package of the Year. It is unclear from the TME and Matters releases what stories led to the awards.

This is not the first time that Bob Moore leads a newsroom focused on education matters that result in arrests and awards.

El Paso Independent School District Cheating Scandal

In May 2010, then-state senator Eliot Shapleigh held a press conference where he alleged that officials at El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) was “disappearing” students to illegally raise test scores at the school district. Although the TEA cleared EPISD of wrongdoing and the Department of Education found “relatively minor infractions” in a preliminary report, on August 1, 2011, then-EPISD superintendent Lorenzo Garcia is arrested by the FBI. In 2012 EPISD admits to problems and the TEA appointed a monitor to supervise the EPISD board. By the end of 2012, the EPISD board was stripped of its powers and a conservator was appointed.

In 2013, the TEA appointed a Board of Managers. In 2014, Myrna Gamboa pleaded guilty to conspiracy and on April 27, 2016, five EPISD educators were arrested on federal charges on the so-called EPISD cheating scandal. A mistrial was declared on June 28, 2017 after the defense argued that prosecutors improperly withheld key evidence.

A book, Bombshell in the Barrio, was released on Amazon in 2021 where it alleges that the EPISD cheating scandal would not have led to the false conclusion that there was “cheating in the ‘cheating scandal’,” without the “constant barrage of news coverage by Bob Moore and Zahira Torres. Moore and Torres were both working at the El Paso Times during this time.

The book was principally written by John Tanner, one of the EPISD administrators charged by the federal government 2016.

Except for Gamboa, who has pleaded guilty in 2014 and Lorenzo Garcia who also pleaded guilty to charges unrelated to the cheating scandal, the charges against the rest of the EPISD administrators were dropped in 2020.

Although the charges surrounding the cheating scandal were dropped, both Zahira Torres and Bob Moore continue to use the scandal as part of their journalism experience to this day.

Like the EPISD scandal, there are many questions about the propriety of Bob Moore’s actions as a journalist. This is not the first instance of questions are raised about Moore’s journalist ethics, including in the latest controversy where his reporter Claudia Lorena Silva suggests on tape that Moore dictates what is covered in the stories published by El Paso Matters.

Defense Attorney Provides Some Context

On Friday we asked Gabriela Castellano for a comment regarding their arrests. Her attorney, Mary Stillinger sent us a copy of a statement attributed to Ricardo Castellano on Friday evening. The statement reads that the arrests were made “without notice and without an opportunity to respond to any of the allegations of wrongdoing prior to the indictment.” The statement adds that Barrera and Castellano “have both raised many questions about propriety of SISD’s activities.”

The TEA report that found problems with SISD were for activities before Barrera or Castellano joined the board.

Stillinger’s statement concludes that they have seen the indictment, “but know that there are no facts to support the charges.”

The upcoming litigation will likely reveal more information. However, what we know now leaves questions as to why and who ordered the investigation.

Who Ordered The Criminal Investigations?

Notwithstanding Bob Moore’s directions on how to report the SISD scandal, an important question remains unanswered, who started the investigation into Pablo Barrera, and Ricardo and Gabriela Castellano?

The Texas Rangers have the authority to unilaterally open an investigation into public corruption and yet a Texas Ranger articulated in his investigative report that he was tasked to open the investigation by the District Attorney. Yet, the District Attorney’s office denied requesting the investigation and when it was suggested that the County Attorney had been the one to request the investigation, which they neither confirmed nor denied, we are left with the apparent contradiction that Texas law does not allow the County Attorney to open this type of investigation.

The indictments add further questions as to who ordered the investigation instead of providing answers. Several indictments were filed on April 25, 2024 charging Barrera and the Castellanos on several counts. On April 25, the District Attorney was Bill Hicks, who was appointed to the office after a Texas Ranger said it was the District Attorney’s office that directed him to open an investigation, but was denied by the office, then under the direction of Yvonne Rosales.

Moreover, remains the question on whether the Texas Rangers acted properly when they forcefully took the cellphone away from Gabriela Castellano who alleges that they never provided her a search warrant for the telephone and that they told her they did not need one.

Regarding Gabriela Castellano’s allegation that Bob Moore’s El Paso Matters is targeting her and her husband, we asked the reporter, Claudia Lorena Silva to comment on the results, if any, of the meeting she promised the Castellanos she would have with her editors and Bob Moore.

Silva told them that she has “no control” over what gets published at El Paso Matters. Silva and Bob Moore, who we copied in our request for comment have not responded to our request, leaving open the question of whether Bob Moore is improperly playing a part in the scandal, either through selective reporting or by omission of facts, or both.

Notes:

1. Cristina Carreon, “SISD superintendent’s resignation to cost district $629,308,” El Paso Times, May 7, 2021, 1A.
2. The El Paso Police Report misspells Torres’ name. The actual spelling of his name is Torrez.
3. Angelica Soto is the president of the Socorro Education Association, an affiliate of the Texas State Teachers Association/ National Education Association.
4. Rudy Campoya’s open records request on December 13, 2022 requested a copy of the “24 hours of recording and the recording mentions my name.”
5. Claudia Lorena Silva, “Report lists Socorro ISD failings,” El Paso Times, March 27, 2024, 5A.