A Decade of Corruption in Western Hidalgo County on Trial This Week

On July 13, 2026, a federal prosecutor stood up in a McAllen courtroom. He spoke to the jury. "This case is about a deal, dollars and deception," he said. He was opening the trial of Veronica O'Cana. She is a real estate broker from the Mission area. She is accused of helping bribe a Mission school board member.

The jury found her guilty on all charges. O'Cana is not the first person charged. She is one of more than 20 people arrested in this case.

O'Cana's case sits inside a ten-year federal file. ValleyCentral/KVEO-TV built a timeline of that file, year by year. The file touches four local governments in western Hidalgo County. Those are the city of La Joya and the city of Penitas. They also include the Agua Special Utility District. Two school boards are in it too: La Joya ISD and the Mission school board. Since 2016, more than 20 people tied to those places have been arrested. The charges were federal bribery charges. The guilty pleas show a pattern. This was not a few bad actors acting alone. It was a bribery system. It ran through public contracts and water projects. One name keeps showing up: Performance Services Inc. That is an energy contractor from Indiana. In May 2021, federal agents sent one subpoena. It named three places, all at once: La Joya ISD, Agua SUD, and the city of Mission.

Western Hidalgo County is a group of small towns. La Joya and Penitas sit near the border. So do the areas served by Agua SUD. School boards, city councils, and water boards run these towns. Many board members know each other. Some sit on more than one board. Some are related.

That closeness shows up early. In September 2016, Juan Jose "J.J." Garza held two jobs at once. He ran the La Joya Housing Authority. He also sat on the La Joya school board. That month, agents arrested him. He faced federal wire fraud charges. The charges involved a bid-rigging scheme. It also involved the Donna and Alamo housing authorities.

Garza's arrest did not end the pattern. It only showed how the pattern worked. The Housing Authority board fired Garza that December. Two months later, Frances Salinas took his old job. She worked without pay, on an interim basis. She is the daughter of La Joya's mayor, Jose "Fito" Salinas. In October 2018, federal housing officials raised concerns about her work. The Housing Authority fired her too. She had already joined the La Joya school board the year before. Later, she was arrested herself. The Salinas family, the Housing Authority, and the school board were not really separate. They were the same small circle. They just moved between different public jobs.

By 2019, the FBI was not just chasing people. It was chasing La Joya City Hall itself. Agents raided the building on August 16, 2019. They were looking into Mayor Salinas and his daughter. That December, voters removed Salinas from office. Isidro Casanova beat him in a runoff. Casanova was a former La Joya police chief. He had run against corruption. Two months later, agents arrested Salinas on wire fraud charges.

The money trail starts small. It grows fast. Mike Alaniz was La Joya's city administrator. In October 2019, he pleaded guilty to a federal theft charge. He had sold land to the city he worked for. He sold it at an inflated price. In May 2022, a judge gave him four months in prison. He had cooperated with investigators. It was the shortest sentence in the whole case. Frances Salinas was arrested in December 2019. San Antonio police made the arrest on a federal warrant. She had helped a friend, Sylvia Garces Valdez, land a city contract. It was a public relations deal worth $12,000. In exchange, Salinas got a $7,000 kickback. Her father was arrested two months later. He had arranged for the city to buy his own house. He sold it at an inflated price. He also took part in the same PR kickback scheme. By September 2020, a federal grand jury added new charges. Both Salinases now faced charges tied to a La Joya Economic Development Corporation project. Prosecutors said money was siphoned out of it.

Then the case grew past La Joya's city government. In May 2021, federal agents sent subpoenas. They went to La Joya ISD, Agua SUD, and the city of Mission. All three had records tied to Performance Services Inc. That firm sold energy-savings deals to public agencies. That subpoena is the hinge of this whole ten-year file. Almost everything before it involves the city of La Joya. Almost everything after it involves who got paid to protect the Performance Services contract.

That same year, more charges landed in Penitas. City Manager Omar Romero pleaded guilty in November 2021. He said he took part in bribery and bankruptcy fraud. This scheme had nothing to do with Performance Services. But it followed the same playbook. Romero sold two water storage tanks to Agua SUD. He sold them through his own firm, ST Infrastructure Group. He bribed an Agua SUD board member with $6,000. He also paid $42,500 to a middleman to help close the deal. Agua SUD paid about $245,000 for the tanks in total. Separately, Romero held another job. He was chief restructuring officer for Hidalgo County EMS. He improperly took $50,000 from that agency. He did not have court permission, since the agency was in bankruptcy.

2022 was the big year. This is where the file stops reading like a list of names. It starts reading like an org chart of a bribery ring.

On January 6, 2022, La Joya school board trustee Armin Garza pleaded guilty. He said he took part in a plot to defraud the United States. He had taken at least $234,500. He quit his seat.

Six days later, businessman Jaime A. Rodriguez pleaded guilty too. He said he bribed a "high-level official" at Agua SUD. That official was not named. Rodriguez had $111,618.84 routed to him. He paid $55,000 of that to a firm the official ran.

On January 21, two more guilty pleas landed on the same day. Penitas city councilman Alex Guajardo said he took part in a bribe plot. He had helped bribe La Joya school board members. He took in at least $275,000. He passed some of it to a district administrator. He passed the rest to board members. It bought their support for the Performance Services contract.

That same day, Penitas Public Works Director Andres "Andy" Morales pleaded guilty. He had a $600-per-paycheck city stipend. He had also failed to disclose a past felony on federal gun forms. He pleaded guilty to that too. He and his firm, RGV Redlight, took in about $1.1 million. They passed along at least $373,000 to other people.

The rest of 2022 kept adding names. Former La Joya ISD Assistant Superintendent Jose Luis Morin pleaded guilty in February. He said he took bribes. He took at least $28,000. It was payment for recommending the energy-savings contract.

Former school board president Oscar "Coach" Salinas pleaded guilty in March. His charge was federal extortion. He had pressured an engineering firm. He threatened to cancel its insurance contract with the district.

Businessman Jeremy Lancon pleaded guilty to money laundering. His firm, Aqua-Metric, had paid a "finder's fee." It was about $15,000. The money went to a relative of a school board member.

In April, business consultant Antonio Gonzalez III pleaded guilty. He had bribed a Mission school board member. The bribe bought support for a Performance Services contract there too. That meant the scheme had spread to a second school district.

The same day, solar firm owner Chirag Patel pleaded guilty to money laundering. His firm, Ecolectrics, paid at least $143,000 to Andy Morales. The payments were hidden as payroll. They were bribes to public officials.

In June, engineer Mariano Garcia was indicted. He held a title: "owner representative." He held it for La Joya ISD. He also held it for Agua SUD. Both hired him for their Performance Services deals. Prosecutors say he paid nearly $250,000 to Morales's firm. The goal was to sway the Agua SUD general manager. Garcia pleaded not guilty.

Penitas Mayor Rodrigo "Rigo" Lopez had quit his La Joya ISD job that February. In June, he was indicted on federal theft charges. He had given cash to a La Joya ISD worker. The goal was to help his own firm, Xizaka LLC. It won purchase approvals without competitive bidding. Lopez pleaded guilty that August. He resigned as mayor.

Add up just three of these cases: Garza, Guajardo, and Morin. Together, they said they took at least $537,500 in bribes. The bribes were tied to the school board and the Performance Services deal. Add Morales's $1.1 million. Add Rodriguez's $111,618.84. In just these cases, the cash on record tops $1.7 million, about $1.75 million in all.

The sentences matched the scale of the crimes. On April 28, 2022, Judge Randy Crane sentenced former Mayor "Fito" Salinas. He got two years and nine months in federal prison. The judge told him: "power corrupts." That same day, his daughter Frances got three years and three months. Alaniz, who had cooperated, got four months. Oscar "Coach" Salinas failed drug tests while awaiting sentencing. In April 2023, a judge ordered him held without bond. That August, he was sentenced to 14 months. He told the court his conduct traced back to substance abuse. Romero, the former Penitas city manager, got 14 months of supervised release in May 2024.

The clearest sign of the damage came in February 2024. The Texas Education Agency stepped in. It appointed a board of managers to run La Joya ISD. That board replaced the district's elected school board completely. TEA's reason was blunt. It cited "a significant problem with public corruption."

The file did not stop there. On January 9, 2026, former Sullivan City Manager Ana Mercado was charged. The charge was theft by a public servant. She is accused of stealing about $5,000 from that city. She pleaded not guilty. On April 7, 2026, Jorge O'Cana Jr pleaded guilty. He had been arrested back in June 2022. His charge was witness tampering. He allegedly tried to talk Antonio Gonzalez III out of testifying. Ten years after Garza's arrest opened this file, something new began. On July 13, 2026, Veronica O'Cana's trial started. She was indicted in November 2022. Her charges: bribery, money laundering, and witness tampering. They tie back to the Mission school board scheme. She has pleaded not guilty. Testimony resumes this week.

This case's public record is built almost entirely on admissions. Defendants have already told a federal court what they did. They did it plea by plea, over ten years. That matters. This is not built on rumors or tips. It is built on sworn guilty pleas. More than a dozen people spoke under oath. They said what they did. They said how much they got paid to do it.

The strongest quotes on record come from the bench and from prosecutors. Judge Randy Crane sentenced Jose "Fito" Salinas in April 2022. He summed up the whole file in two words: "power corrupts." A federal prosecutor opened the O'Cana trial in July 2026. He put it just as plainly: "This case is about a deal, dollars and deception." The Texas Education Agency explained its 2024 takeover of La Joya ISD. It did not soften its words either. It cited "a significant problem with public corruption."

Not every voice in the file speaks for the prosecution. Oscar "Coach" Salinas said he shook down an engineering firm. At his August 2023 sentencing, he spoke to the court. He said his conduct traced back to substance abuse. He had already spent that spring in jail without bond. That happened after he failed drug tests.

This story is built from a year-by-year record. ValleyCentral/KVEO-TV reported that record: arrests, pleas, and sentences. El Tejano did not contact the people named in this story. Some, like engineer Mariano Garcia, are presumed innocent. They have pleaded not guilty. Others already served their sentences. This record does not show them making further comments. Veronica O'Cana's defense is not detailed in the source record, beyond her not-guilty plea. Her trial, happening this week, is where that defense will be made.

Read these cases side by side, and a pattern jumps out. This was not four separate crime cases that just happened nearby. Often, it was the same contractor. It just ran through different public boards. Performance Services Inc's energy contracts moved through La Joya ISD, Agua SUD, and the Mission school board. The timeframes overlap. In each case, someone got paid to keep the contract alive. The firm itself got subpoenaed in May 2021. But the record does not show any Performance Services employee pleading guilty. The people who pleaded guilty were local: officials, workers, and go-betweens. They took payments to protect the contract on the local end.

The other pattern is structural. Andy Morales moved from Penitas chief of staff to public works director. He got that job despite hiding a felony on federal gun forms. Once he had that job, his firm, RGV Redlight, became a channel for money. It moved more cash than any other player in this file. Over $1.1 million came in. Over $373,000 went out to others. Mariano Garcia held that same "owner representative" title. He held it for two public bodies, La Joya ISD and Agua SUD. Both deals were the same kind of contract. These were not outsiders breaking in. They were people already inside the system. The system had put them in the exact seats. Those seats controlled these decisions.

The timeline shows something else. None of this stopped in any single year. It cascaded. Garza's 2016 arrest exposed the Housing Authority. That exposure put Frances Salinas in a job she should not have held. That led to her own arrest. That led to her father's arrest. That led to a 2021 subpoena. That subpoena opened a whole new scheme, one that touched four more public bodies. Ten years later, the file is still open.

The most direct accountability move in this whole record was not a prosecution. It was the Texas Education Agency's decision in February 2024. TEA removed La Joya ISD's elected school board completely. It installed a state-appointed board of managers instead. Voters in La Joya had already tried to fix things once. In December 2019, they voted out Mayor Salinas. They chose a former police chief who ran against corruption instead. That fixed the mayor's office. It did nothing for the school board. It did nothing for the water district. It did nothing for the neighboring city of Penitas. Voters never got one clean shot at those. The bribes ran through appointed jobs. They ran through contract votes too. None of that came up in one single election.

At least one figure in this record has no name. In January 2022, Jaime Rodriguez said he bribed a "high-level official" at Agua SUD. That official got $55,000, routed through Rodriguez's firm. The source record names Rodriguez. It details his guilty plea. It does not name the official he bribed. It does not say whether that person faced separate charges. That gap in the public record stands open. It is not resolved.

The clearest open question is playing out right now. It is happening in a McAllen courtroom, this week. Veronica O'Cana has pleaded not guilty. Her charges: bribery, money laundering, and witness tampering. They tie to the Mission school board scheme. Her trial began July 13, 2026. It is still hearing testimony. Jorge O'Cana Jr was arrested in 2022. His charge: trying to talk a witness out of testifying. That witness was helping police. He pleaded guilty to that charge in April 2026. That was months before the trial he allegedly tried to stop.

Ten years ago, Garza's arrest opened this file. A federal prosecutor just opened the newest case in it. His words fit everything that came before: a deal, dollars, and deception. The file this case belongs to will not close with it. It has not closed once. Not in ten years.