Nature of charges questioned in ex-campaign worker’s case

An attorney for the former San Antonio campaign worker arrested last week is questioning why evidence against the worker wasn’t presented to a grand jury and why the charges were filed in Kendall County rather than Bexar.

“You walk a warrant when there’s a clear and present danger to a citizen or complainant or alleged victim. We don’t see that here,” said Nico LaHood, former Bexar County district attorney, who is representing the worker, Raquel Rodriguez. “The election’s two months over.”

Rodriguez was charged with four felonies by the state attorney general’s office, including election fraud and illegal voting.

She was arrested Wednesday and released the next afternoon from Kendall County Jail on bail totaling $60,000.

The probable cause affidavit for the arrest and related documents are under a court seal filed by the attorney general’s office, Kendall County District Clerk Susan Jackson said.

It wasn’t clear why the arrest warrant came out of Kendall County; the attorney general’s office didn’t return calls seeking an explanation.

The allegations against Rodriguez surfaced last fall after the conservative activist group Project Veritas posted an edited video of her appearing to help an elderly person fill out a mail-in ballot form and discussing unlawful tactics, including assisting people at the polls.

The video included only snippets of what appear to be multiple conversations, and it was not clear who Rodriguez believed she was speaking to or under what context.

In October, Rodriguez posted on Facebook that Project Veritas had approached her saying it represented an “anonymous candidate with money” looking for help in a future city council race.

“I immediately suspected something was wrong with this conversation,” she said, adding: “I chose to continue the conversation and ‘play along’ in order to discover the source and gather my own evidence that I could submit to legal authorities.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement at the time of the arrest that his office reviewed dozens of hours of unedited footage, and that Rodriguez says at one point that she knows her actions are illegal.

LaHood’s comments refuted that.

“Nothing that we’ve reviewed, even that’s out there in the public arena, concerns us as to her guilt,” LaHood said.

“Every citizen accused of a criminal allegation deserves a fair process and an aggressive defense and our goal is to make sure she’s afforded both,” the attorney said.

At the time of the Veritas video, Rodriguez appeared to be working on behalf of a Republican congressional candidate, and mentioned working for several other San Antonio area political figures, including former Republican state Sen. Pete Flores, newly elected state Rep. Elizabeth “Liz” Campos, a Democrat; and former state District Judge Renee Yanta, a Republican.