Anthony Cobos - Record As County Judge

Record As County Judge

In addition to allegations of public corruption, Cobos’s tenure as County Judge was marked by contention related to the County’s Ethics Board and an escalating conflict with County Commissioner Veronica Escobar.

Attorneys Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds filed suit on behalf of Cobos to prevent the County’s Ethics Board from investigating an ethics complaint filed against him by El Paso City Representative Emma Acosta. This complaint was later dismissed by the Ethics Board. With respect to Cobos's lawsuit, “ lost in court ... on every significant issue he and his lawyers raised” and the visiting judge dismissed the suit after concluding that Cobos and his lawyers sued the wrong party: the ethics board instead of the county. Cobos later withdrew the suit.

On January 17, 2010, Cobos accused Commissioner Veronica Escobar of “deprivation of honest services” in a criminal complaint filed with the El Paso Sheriff. The allegation concerned a vote by Escobar in 2007 to approve a settlement of a lawsuit against the County in which attorney John Wenke was representing the party suing the County. Cobos alleged that in 2010, Wenke’s representation of Escobar in an ethics complaint filed against Escobar was payback for the vote three years before to approve the civil settlement. The ethics complaint against Escobar, filed by Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds, who had represented Cobos in his unsuccessful suit against the Ethics Board, was dismissed as “frivolous and without factual basis.”

On February 13, 2010, following a two-week investigation, Escobar was fully cleared of any criminal violations by the Sheriff’s Department.

Cobos also came under fire for hiring a long-time controversial El Paso political activist Jaime O. Perez as his chief of staff. On December 11, 2008 Perez announced his resignation, effective in early 2009, and his intention to run for City Council against incumbent Steve Ortega, although Cobos the next day announced he would not accept Perez' resignation. Earlier in 2008 Perez asked County Attorney Jose Rodriguez for an opinion on whether a county judge can resign and still vote on their successor; Rodriguez affirmed that would be possible.

Cobos' previous chief of staff, Travis Ketner, pled guilty to several felonies and is considered a key source of information in the FBI corruption investigation. The charging document to which Ketner pled guilty indicated that Cobos hired Ketner at the urging of former El Paso County Judge and well-known political operative Luther Jones and that Ketner was hired for the explicit purpose of securing bribes for Cobos and others.

On December 12, 2008 Cobos held a news conference outside the offices of the El Paso Times to deny rumors that he may resign as county judge, and to attack the newspaper for an editorial that wished he would resign. Cobos asked Times publisher and president Ray Stafford and editorial writers Joe Muench and Charles Edgren to debate him, which they did not do. He claimed that the Times is "attempting to break me" and "control my votes and actions on the Commissioners Court." Cobos attempted to enter the Times building, but was blocked by newspaper employees. He also banged on the building's glass doors, and eventually slipped a letter with his complaints through the slit between the doors. At the news conference Cobos also refused to answer questions about whether the rumors of his resignation might be related to Ketner's allegation and the FBI investigation, although he did state that he had not spoken to any federal agency in a year and a half.