Boner Candidate #1: GOOD PLAN CLIVEN
Boner Candidate #2: THIS IS HOW WE DO BUSINESS IN THE SPINACH CAPITAL
Almost every top official in a remote South Texas city was arrested Thursday under a detailed federal indictment that accuses them of taking bribes from contractors and sending city workers to help an illegal gambling operator nicknamed “Mr. T.” Crystal City’s mayor, city manager, mayor pro tempore, one of three current councilmen and a former councilman were all arrested under an indictment obtained by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney said. A second councilman is already charged in a separate case with smuggling Mexican immigrants. That leaves just one councilman not facing federal charges in Crystal City, a town of about 7,100 people about 50 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Once billed as the “Spinach Capital of the World,” Crystal City’s logo features a cartoon of Popeye, and a spinach festival with a cook-off and a beauty pageant draws tens of thousands of people each year. But in recent months, the town has been in the news for turmoil at City Hall and allegations of misuse of public money. “What happened is nothing to celebrate. It’s something sad that happened to us,” said the remaining councilman, Joel Barajas, on Thursday. “By all means, we need to move forward.” The indictment accuses the town’s leadership of using their positions “to enrich themselves by soliciting and accepting payments and other things of value.” Also charged was Ngoc Tri Nguyen, alleged to be an operator of illegal gambling rooms, who was nicknamed “Mr. T.” Crystal City Mayor Ricardo Lopez took $6,000 from Nguyen to buy a vehicle, the indictment alleges. In return, he allegedly waived some taxes for Nguyen and had employees close competing casinos that violate state law but exist informally throughout South Texas. Lopez allegedly told city employees inspecting Nguyen’s property to “make it easy.” City Manager William James Jonas and Mayor Pro Tempore Rogelio Mata are accused of giving a contractor a $12,000 payment “in exchange for payments and other things of value.”
Boner Candidate #3: I DIDN’T BRING THEM BECAUSE THEY CAN’T HOLD THEIR LIQUOR.
An Orem woman is accused of leaving young children at home while she was drinking elsewhere. The 25-year-old woman was charged Friday with two counts of child abandonment, a third-degree felony. In the early morning of Dec. 13, two people found a 4-year-old boy “wandering around outside, crying and calling for his mother,” according to the charges. “He was not properly dressed to be outside.” The people contacted police, who found the boy’s apartment where an alarm was going off and a 7-month-old child was inside, the charges add. “During the time that the police were trying to sort things out,” the woman walked up and her 4-year-old ran to her, according to the charges. Police say that the woman had been drinking and said that her neighbor “was supposed to be watching the children by baby monitor,” But when the police checked, “this neighbor was not even in the state at the time.”
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