{"id":152898,"date":"2026-02-05T23:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/152898\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T23:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:59:13","slug":"judge-drops-charges-against-former-socorro-isd-trustees-after-indictments-found-legally-flawed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/152898\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge drops charges against former Socorro ISD trustees after indictments found legally flawed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charges against two former Socorro Independent School District trustees, and the wife of one of the school board members, have been dismissed after prosecutors agreed the indictments failed to state an offense under state law.<\/p>\n

Then-trustees Pablo Barrera and Ricardo Castellano were indicted in May 2024<\/a>, along with Castellano\u2019s wife, Gabriela, a teacher in the district. The indictments alleged they harmed or threatened to harm school employees with whom they had disagreements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mary Stillinger, the attorney for the two trustees, said the prosecution smacked of a political vendetta.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, even if you took everything that everybody said as true, all the bad things, even if you took all them as true, which I\u2019m not saying that they are all true, I think they were maligned largely for political reasons \u2026 it still wasn\u2019t criminal. It didn\u2019t rise to the level of a criminal case,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The charges came after El Paso Matters published details of a 2021 recording<\/a> of the three defendants discussing how to punish Gabriela Castellano\u2019s principal. Gabriela Castellano had uploaded the extensive recording to a district server, and El Paso Matters obtained the recording under Texas open records laws after a lengthy battle with the district.<\/p>\n

Gabriela Castellano said she wouldn\u2019t discuss the dismissal of the charges with El Paso Matters. \u201cYou are a biased political operation who destroyed people\u2019s lives and livelihoods, including ours,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In a series of motions over the past two weeks, defense lawyers asked that the charges be dropped because the indictments \u201cfail to state an offense\u201d under Texas law. The District Attorney\u2019s Office did not oppose the motions, and 171st District Court Judge Bonnie Rangel dismissed the charges in a series of hearings.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the indictment does not specify any conduct that would constitute \u2018harm\u2019 or \u2018threatening to harm\u2019 and instead specifies conduct that is not criminal, the indictment should be quashed,\u201d Gabriela Castellano\u2019s attorney, Felix Valenzuela, said in a Jan. 26 motion.<\/p>\n

The indictments accused the three defendants of \u201cexerting undue influence\u201d on school district employees, but that is not an allegation of actual harm to someone else as required by the statutes they were charged under, defense lawyers Valenzuela and Mary Stillinger wrote in the motions.<\/p>\n

In a statement to El Paso Matters, District Attorney James Montoya said the indictments were handed up during the tenure of former District Attorney Bill Hicks, whom Montoya defeated in the November 2024 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, after a comprehensive analysis of the relevant statutes and appellate court precedent, it became clear that there were multiple constitutional and statutory infirmities with the indictments as drafted. Moreover, these were defects that could not be cured as the evidence does not clearly establish that the defendants\u2019 behavior arose to the level of criminal misconduct. As a result, we were unable to oppose the defendants\u2019 motions to quash in good faith,\u201d Montoya said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur office remains committed to upholding the highest standards of justice and integrity and pursues cases only when the evidence supports a reasonable likelihood of proving the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt at a criminal trial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hicks said the case was handled by an experienced prosecutor, Erin Delaney Matney, who was the chief of the white collar crime unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis surprises and disappoints me. Although I will say that a prosecutor\u2019s understanding of the evidence and the law is always developing as time goes on, but as of my last briefing on this matter, now well over a year ago, those cases were strong and well founded,\u201d he said in a statement to El Paso Matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that the Socorro ISD police and the Texas Rangers had done a good job with their investigations and the evidence was more than sufficient to sustain convictions,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cHowever, as I mentioned, a prosecutor\u2019s understanding of the facts and evidence can change over time. I have not talked with the Chief of that unit and do not know if her opinion of the trial worthiness of the cases has changed. I\u2019m sure that DA Montoya believes he is doing justice in his actions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Gabriela and Ricardo Castellano, center, watch as Nate Carman speaks after being named the sole superintendent finalist for the Socorro Independent School District on Feb. 21, 2022. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

The indictments against Ricardo Castellano alleging obstruction or retaliation were dismissed Jan. 24.<\/p>\n

The indictments against Barrera \u2013 charging him with obstruction or retaliation, official oppression, retaliation and coercion of a public servant \u2013 were dismissed Jan. 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Feb. 4, Rangel dismissed charges of obstruction or retaliation against Gabriela Castellano.<\/p>\n

Barrera and Ricardo Castellano stopped attending board meetings<\/a> after they were indicted, and did not run for reelection last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gabriela Castellano no longer works at Socorro ISD, and state records show that her educator certification is under review by the Texas Education Agency\u2019s Educator Investigations Division.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

LISTEN: EL PASO MATTERS PODCAST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charges against two former Socorro Independent School District trustees, and the wife of one of the school board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,22082,4665],"class_list":{"0":"post-152898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-el-paso","9":"tag-el-paso-headlines","10":"tag-el-paso-news","11":"tag-sisd","12":"tag-socorro-isd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}