as she took the reins of the department in October 2024<\/a>. However, she doesn\u2019t think she has heard the last of Steele. <\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know because I never imagined he would have done what he did,\u201d Frausto said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t even in the department, and there was no reason to. We\u2019ve never crossed paths in a bad way. So, I just didn\u2019t understand it then, and I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see it again in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n
KSAT has requested comment from Steele and his attorney but have not yet heard back.<\/p>\n
Background<\/p>\n
Steele left the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association (SAPFFA) and the San Antonio Fire Department in August 2021, but police said he didn\u2019t leave its politics. <\/p>\n
According to court documents, Frausto received texts and emails in March 2024, supposedly from an \u201cindependent investigator\u201d hired by someone applying for the fire chief position. The sender said his name was \u201cFrank\u201d and that he had \u201cencountered some concerning allegations,\u201d to which he asked Frausto to respond.<\/p>\n
Those claims included Frausto allegedly using her position as fire marshal to order maximum fines be assessed at an ex-partner\u2019s workplace. There were also allegations of physical abuse by Frausto from another former partner.<\/p>\n
Frausto later told police she didn\u2019t know what the sender was talking about.<\/p>\n
Frausto first received a text message on March 9 telling her to check her email for a message from earlier in the day. In the email, the sender warned that \u201cany information provided and the nature of these allegations will be held in strict confidence and will not be disclosed unless you decide to pursue the Fire Chief position, at which point it may become necessary to further assess these matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frausto reported the email to the City Attorney\u2019s Office, which sent \u201cFrank\u201d a cease and desist demand on March 13.<\/p>\n
The City Attorney\u2019s Office told the sender the city had not retained them to do background checks and that the sender\u2019s email address, which included \u201cGoodHire,\u201d implied they worked for the background check company. However, the city\u2019s demand noted that GoodHire had denied any knowledge of \u201cFrank\u201d or his investigation.<\/p>\n
On March 16, \u201cFrank\u201d sent Frausto another email demanding a response within 24 hours \u201coutlining your plan of action to address these allegations\u201d and warning that \u201cthe clock is ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frausto contacted police that night and made a formal report.<\/p>\n
On March 22, she received another message from a new email address showing a news release that the sender claimed would go out to national and local news outlets \u201cwithin the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
On March 27, Frausto received a text message from a new number showing a template for a similar news release.<\/p>\n
Frausto told police she felt intimidated and threatened by the messages and that the sender was trying to coerce her into not applying for the fire chief\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
San Antonio police traced the phone numbers back to Steele using Google Voice account information, email addresses associated with those accounts and internet activity information.<\/p>\n
The alleged scheme didn\u2019t work. Frausto was sworn in as chief on Oct. 31, 2024. Steele was indicted two months later. <\/p>\n
More messages from \u2018Frank\u2019<\/p>\n
Documents indicate two other members of the SAFD command staff received similar messages from \u201cFrank.\u201d Their messages included allegations they had paid to have union officials followed, been responsible for mental health breakdowns of firefighters, used offensive speech in front of civilian city employees and committed sexual harassment.<\/p>\n
However, the other command staff members were not named in the documents, nor do the messages to them appear in the affidavit for Steele\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n
Police also spoke with another SAFD employee who had received a message from \u201cFrank\u201d asking about allegations of abuse in their relationship with Frausto. That employee, who was not eligible for the chief\u2019s job, told police they didn\u2019t know what the sender was talking about as they had never had a relationship with Frausto.<\/p>\n
Steele\u2019s tenure as union president<\/p>\n
In his 17 years as SAPFFA president, Steele was known for his willingness to go toe-to-toe with City Hall. Most notably, he led the firefighters in a yearslong contract fight that spanned the negotiating table, the courtroom and the ballot box.<\/p>\n
Under Steele, the fire union successfully rallied voters in 2018 to put limits on the city manager\u2019s pay and tenure and to give the union the unilateral power to call for binding arbitration during contract negotiations.<\/p>\n
However, that victory soon backfired on firefighters. After the union invoked its new power in 2019, a panel of arbitrators handed down a contract that fell short of what firefighters had hoped and for which the union struggled to make up ground in its most recent negotiations.<\/p>\n
Steele retired from SAFD as a battalion chief in August 2021 and left the union at the same time.<\/p>\n
More coverage of this story on KSAT: <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The controversial, former head of San Antonio\u2019s firefighters union is no longer charged with stalking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12940,72769,633,82,84,83,72768,58352],"class_list":["post-181593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-bexar-county-district-attorneys-office","tag-chris-steele","tag-safd","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-sapffa","tag-valerie-frausto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181593","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=181593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}