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Old 03-10-2010, 01:14 PM
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Default Sylvia Handy pleads guilty

Sylvia Handy pleads guilty
McALLEN — Sylvia Handy has maintained since her arrest last year that she never violated the trust of the voters who elected her to office.
And despite pleading guilty to felony tax fraud and conspiracy charges, she is expected to resign her office today standing by that declaration.
During a court hearing Monday heavy on semantics, the four-term county commissioner managed to admit to a federal judge that she lied on her taxes and put an undocumented immigrant on the county payroll while at the same time insisting that she never knowingly did anything wrong.

She effectively confessed to a series of federal crimes without acknowledging ever having any criminal intent.

“I’m pleading guilty to the conspiracy, not the manner and means of that conspiracy,” Handy said, attempting to explain the self-drawn distinctions to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa.

At times, the judge appeared frustrated by the logic presented by the sobbing 52-year-old woman and the delicate legal safe haven her attorney attempted to draw for her.

“The court’s not interested in you not admitting things that are so obvious anyone can see it,” Hinojosa said. “If you don’t want to plead guilty just say so, but don’t stand here and lie about it.”

ALLEGED WRONGDOING

Monday’s plea cut short preparations for a trial slated to include testimony from current and former county employees and tape recorded conversations in which the commissioner allegedly implicated herself in trying to disrupt ongoing state and federal investigations.

A panel of more than 60 jurors who had been called for a trial setting that morning waited in a separate courtroom while government and defense lawyers rushed to hammer out their disagreements in a last-minute deal.

In a sprawling 65-page indictment, federal prosecutors had accused Handy of putting at least three undocumented immigrants who worked as her personal housekeepers and babysitters on the payroll of her Precinct 1 office.

Even though they never did any work for the county, the women collectively took home $200,000 in salary and retirement benefits over a period of six years, the document states.

But Handy only admitted Monday to illegally hiring one of the women — an undocumented immigrant named Beatriz Garcia — and claimed in court not to have known the woman had no legal right to work in the country until after she had resigned her government job.

Throughout her employment, Garcia applied for and worked under three different assumed identities between May 2001 and March 2007 and was paid more than $16,000 in taxpayer money, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez.

Handy even named her employee of the month July 2004, three years before Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents began their investigation into the commissioner’s hiring practices.

While Garcia was taking home her government checks, Handy was claiming child care tax credits for the babysitting services Garcia allegedly performed in her home, prosecutors said.

AN HONEST MISTAKE

However, Handy’s attorney — Al Alvarez — described his client’s relationship with Garcia differently.

The woman — the daughter of a long-time Precinct 1 maintenance employee — applied for and took over her father’s job after he left his position in 2001.

Garcia did file fraudulent paperwork to secure her employment, but Handy had no idea that she was working under fake names and no reason to suspect she was undocumented, he said.

“Her father was a U.S. citizen, her sister was a U.S. citizen, she graduated from Weslaco High School and she spoke perfect English,” he said.

And despite government allegations that Garcia actually worked in Handy’s home, Alvarez maintained that it was actually Garcia’s sister who performed most of Handy’s housekeeping and babysitting duties.

“The reality is she didn’t live with the commissioner,” he said. “She took care of the children for two weeks while her sister went to visit relatives in Mexico.”

When pressed on why she was still pleading guilty while claiming ignorance of Garcia’s situation, Handy told the judge that she had unknowingly conspired with Garcia’s father to help the woman gain employment with the county.

The tax credit she claimed for Garcia’s child care services — under a fourth assumed name — was merely an oversight, her attorney said. Handy forgot to change her tax forms to reflect that a prior babysitter was no longer working in their home.

TRUTH IN SENTENCING

Legally, the differing stories offered by government and defense lawyers Monday don’t matter much. No matter how the facts are interpreted, Handy will now have a felony record and be forced to resign her office.

But the distinction may have a significant impact on her sentencing. She could face no jail time or up to 10 years in prison at a hearing scheduled for June 23.

Where her fate lands on that scale will largely depend on how Hinojosa, the judge, interprets her plea.

As part of her agreement with prosecutors, government lawyers agreed to recommend a reduced sentence, drop their case against Handy’s husband, and abandon efforts to recover $219,000 in criminal forfeiture proceedings.

The conspiracy count to which she pleaded was also the only one in her indictment which did not suggest she committed the crime “for the purpose of commercial advantage and private gain” — a factor that would increase the range of punishment under federal sentencing guidelines.

And while the federal system allows judges to take into account relevant criminal conduct not included in the specific counts to which a defendant pleads, Alvarez made clear Monday that his client was not admitting to any public corruption allegations — a distinction Hinojosa drew sharply in court.

“Neither one of these charges is a public corruption charge,” he said. “One wonders why other charges weren’t brought, but they weren’t.”

Hinojosa allowed Handy to remain free on bond pending her sentencing on the condition that she immediately resign her elected office.

And for the long-time public servant, that may be the harshest punishment she will face, Alvarez said.

“She has been elected four different times,” he said. “She’s the first female commissioner in the history of Hidalgo County. She has a lot of supporters.

“She feels like she let them down by the fact that she pleaded guilty, but it was a decision only she could make.”
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http://www.themonitor.com/articles/g...unt-handy.html
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