Former constable’s filings not adding up
Weeks after Chris Diaz stepped down following two terms as Harris County Precinct 2 constable, a mystery remains: What happened to tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash?
Eleven months after the Houston Chronicle first reported irregularities in Diaz’s campaign finance reports, the required disclosures remain riddled with errors and fail to account for the whereabouts of more than $60,000 in contributions the constable reported receiving.
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen a mistake that large, if it is in fact a mistake,” Austin campaign finance attorney Roger Borgelt said. “That’s a rather large discrepancy in my experience, and I’ve looked at dozens of these.”
Diaz has yet to file his most recent campaign finance report, which was due Jan. 15, according to the Harris County Clerk’s Office.
The former constable and his campaign treasurer — his wife, Ana — did not respond to requests for comment. Harris County Precinct 3 Constable Sherman Eagleton hired Diaz as a deputy in early January.
Candidates and elected officials in Texas are required to regularly file campaign finance reports detailing political contributions and expenses. The reports are supposed to provide some transparency to the public on how political campaigns are financed and managed and ensure candidates follow the rules established by the Texas Ethics Commission.
There are no restrictions on how much Harris County candidates can accept from individual donors, and since campaign accounts also can be used to supplement an elected official’s office budget, few limits exist on how political donations may be spent. Harris County officials recently have billed their campaigns for
restaurant tabs, artwork, vehicle leases and foreign travel. One even invests donor money in the stock market.
‘Max, max’
Diaz stands out because his reports literally do not add up. A Chronicle analysis of the 23 reports the constable filed while in office found that he reported $556,210 in contributions and $488,041 in expenses from Jan. 1, 2013, through June 30, 2020. Subtracting the $6,514 cash on hand Diaz reported on his most recent filing last July, $61,655 remains unaccounted for.
In addition to the accounting inconsistencies, the reports contain numerous misspelled donor names and job titles, including several instances in which a donor’s first name is missing. On one form, a donor is listed only as “Max, max.”
On seven of Diaz’s reports, the listed contribution total is more than $1,000 higher than the actual sum of donations shown. In July 2013, Diaz’s donations totaled $6,134 more than the sum he listed. The sum of donations on the July 2014 report was $5,174 higher than the amount shown.
Last October, Diaz took the unusual step of amending four reports filed in the past four years. In three, he said the expenses of $13,469 and $6,549 at Sam’s Club and $4,097 at Edible Arrangements were actually $135, $66 and $41, owing to misplaced decimal points.
By decreasing those expenses,
Diaz added almost $24,000 to the total unaccounted for by his campaign.
Borgelt said candidates often file sloppy campaign finance reports, though the high-dollar disparities on Diaz’s disclosures are unusual. The Texas Ethics Commission has limited power — it cannot investigate beyond reviewing a candidate’s filings — but Borgelt said the regulator could determine whether Diaz has broken the law. The TEC can issue fines of up to $10,000, though its record of collecting from violators is mixed.
“I do think they do a good job of addressing the complaints they receive,” Borgelt said. “I think, perhaps, their firepower in addressing them is somewhat limited.”
The TEC told the Chronicle in
December it had no communication with Diaz in 2020. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which in December announced several charges related to political campaigns, declined to say whether Diaz ever was under investigation.
The double Jerry
Diaz has been embroiled in several ethics issues since he first was elected in 2012 to represent the east Harris County precinct.
The constable had at least 10 boxes of T-shirts donated for Hurricane Harvey victims printed with the Precinct 2 logo and the words “Team Diaz,” a 2018 KHOU investigation found. He threw some of the shirts to crowds at a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Jacinto
City, where his wife serves as mayor.
Diaz defended the shirt printing as “community outreach” that was the idea of one of his lieutenants.
Last year, more than a dozen current and former Precinct 2 employees told the Chronicle that Diaz had pressured them to contribute to his campaign. They described a work environment in which Diaz blurred the boundary between the constable’s office and his campaign and said he sometimes appeared more interested in ensuring his re-election than policing his working-class, predominantly Latino precinct.
And then there is the curious case of the 2020 Democratic primary for constable, which included two challengers named Jerry
Garcia.
The first Garcia was a lieutenant in a neighboring constable precinct. The second, who entered the race on the day of the filing deadline, was a vessel repairman on the Houston Ship Channel and a cousin of Diaz’s wife.
Lt. Garcia alleged cousin Garcia’s candidacy was a ploy by Diaz to dupe voters into voting for the wrong candidate. Diaz told the Chronicle in December 2019 that he had nothing to do with his relative’s decision to run against him.
Cousin Garcia did not formally campaign nor bother to set up a website or social media pages. He received 9 percent of the vote in the March primary, which helped keep top vote-getter Lt. Garcia below the 50 percent threshold needed for an outright win. Garcia defeated Diaz in the July primary runoff.
Houston elections attorney Gerald Birnberg said that while morally reprehensible, recruiting a straw candidate for an election with the intent to deceive voters is permitted under Texas law.
“So long as the transaction was truthfully reported, the mere act of creating confusion is not in and of itself illegal,” Birnberg said.
Eagleton, the Precinct 3 constable, said he was aware of ethics questions surrounding Diaz when he hired him. Since no allegations have been proven, he said he is giving Diaz the benefit of the doubt.
“I sure hope he doesn’t bring any baggage over to my office, because I was just trying to be nice and keep him on the payroll,” Eagleton said.