On May 9, 2024, El Paso News received a tip from a reader alerting us to an event that transpired on April 22, 2024 involving county judge Ricardo Samaniego. The reader advised us that Samaniego missed that day’s county commissioners meeting because of a matter involving law enforcement. The reader provided us the address where law enforcement was responding to. Based on this information we filed a Texas Public Information Act request asking for law enforcement records for that day at the address we were provided.
On May 23, the El Paso County Attorney responded to our open records request advising us that they were seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General because they believed that the records we were requesting were “excepted” from release under the open records law.
According to the letter asking for an opinion, the County was arguing that the records we were requesting were “confidential” because the information was “highly intimate or embarrassing.” It should be noted that at this point we had been unable to confirm if the event involved Samaniego.
On July 25, 2024, the Texas Attorney General ruled that the sheriff’s office cannot withhold the information we requested because the County “had not demonstrated” that the information was “highly intimate or embarrassing and not of legitimate public concern.” The AG added that the medical information could be withheld.
Yesterday late in the day, we received the documents we had requested back in May.
What Happened?
In the morning of April 22, 2024, Ricardo Samaniego placed a 911 call from his county office. When the deputy arrived at Samaniego’s office, the deputy reported that he “heard a female screaming on the other end of the phone call.” In addition to Samaniego, the deputy reported that Samaniego’s assistant, Erica Perales was also present.
The redacted 911 call released to us, suggests the woman screaming at Samaniego over the telephone is the “daughter of the assistant to Samaniego.” However, the incident reports use a different name for the woman and make no mention that she is related to Samaniego’s assistant. However supplemental reports show that the woman being related to the assistant was provided to law enforcement.
We have chosen to withhold the name of the woman because the incident report lists her as a “victim.”
The incident report lists another name for the woman that called Samaniego but it is not the name that the deputy used during the 911 call from Samaniego’s office.
The responding deputy to the woman’s location states that after conferring with her, he transported her to the Hospitals of Providence East Campus at around 11:42 in the morning. The reason the deputy decided to transport her to the hospital is redacted in the report.
The incident report states that the woman alleges that Samaniego is “her boyfriend,” and she was on the phone with Samaniego when the deputy arrived at her location.
According to the incident report, the woman “appeared to be calm” and was “cooperative.” The report adds that the woman “admitted she said things out of anger and was being ‘toxic’ during her conversation with her boyfriend,” Samaniego. The reason she was angry was because she believed that Samaniego “was having an affair” and she “was not going to be quiet about finding out.”
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As the woman was being escorted to the patrol vehicle, she told the deputies that “her rights were being violated as a favor” to Samaniego, stated the incident report. At the hospital, the woman “became verbally uncooperative with the medical staff and would not answer most questions,” but “continued to make outcries (redacted) as a favor” to Samaniego.
The deputy that initially arrived at the woman’s house confirmed that it was Samaniego that was on the telephone with her when he arrived.
The incident report adds that both the woman and Samaniego were “having a verbal altercation” due to Samaniego “being on social media with another female” that the woman “believed” Samaniego “was cheating on her” with.
The incident report states that Samaniego told deputies that the woman “had a gun and was going to shoot the other girl.” The report adds that Samaniego placed the call fearing the woman would harm someone.
According to the incident report no charges were filed in the incident.
Why Is This Of Public Interest?
El Paso News reviewed the online county commissioners meeting for April 22. Initially Carlos Leon announced at 9:41 that Samaniego “was running a little late, he got hung up on something.” In reviewing the footage of the meeting, we noted that Samaniego never joined the meeting, although the meeting did not end until almost 3:00 in the afternoon. The incident reports suggest that the incident had concluded before noon.
We reached out to Samaniego this morning asking about the incident and the reason for him missing the commissioners meeting that day. We asked for his response by 10:00 this morning.
At around 9:30 we received an email from Samaniego letting us know that he was at a County Veterans event. He added that he considered the “matter extremely private,” but would get back to us “after the event.”
El Paso News replied that we would keep our schedule to publish the article this morning but if his comments arrived before then we would include it. We let him know that we will update the article if we receive any comments from him after we published our article.
Shortly before we published the article, we received a second email from Samaniego that reads:
“I appreciate your professional response. Upon further consideration, I feel it necessary to mention that the matter in question pertains to a personal issue involving a third party. As such, it would be inappropriate and insensitive for me to provide any comments on this subject at this time.”
We have requested the body worn camera recordings of the law enforcement officials involved in the incident because the Texas AG ruling states that we are entitled to them. When we receive them, we will publish a follow up article.
Author’s note: due to the hurricane in progress in Florida we needed to publish the article in case we suffered a power outage or a loss of internet connectivity before we had the chance to publish it.
Good work, Martin. I hope all is OK with your family in Florida. I have a nephew in Tampa and they escaped the worst of it, flooding only their garage and pool. ORRs are a big problem here. I have done two ORR requests now with the City’s Climate & Sustainability Dept and been stonewalled by them (they know exactly what I am asking for), so I filed with the Texas AG and they responded with a letter to the City Attorney last week requesting an explanation for why the City isn’t responsive to me. If it gets interesting, I’ll update you on it. Best to you, Jerry.