Dick Cheney, former AG Gonzalez among several indicted by South Texas grand jury

A Willacy County grand jury indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez late Tuesday on state charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in federal detention centers in the South Texas county. In addition, state Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D-Brownsville) was indicted on charges of profiting from his position.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, who had been under indictment himself for nearly two years for allegedly extorting money from a bail bond company before charges were dismissed last month, handed out the charges in the final weeks of his time as DA. He lost in the Democratic primary in March.

As of Wednesday morning, the district’s presiding judge had yet to sign off on the indictment.

"There are a lot of wild things in the (Rio Grande) Valley, but this is by far the wildest," GEO attorney David Oliveira told The Brownsville Herald. "It's crazy.”

Cheney is indicted on a charge of engaging in organized criminal activity, accusing the vice president of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees because of his $85 million investment in the Vanguard Group. The Vanguard Group holds interests in the prison companies that run the detention centers.

Cheney’s spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday to The Associated Press, saying the vice president hadn’t received a copy of the indictment.

Gonzalez was accused of attempting to use his political position to stop a 2006 investigation into abuses at one of the prisons.

“This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize,” said George Terwilliger III, Gonzalez’s attorney, in a statement. “Hopefully, competent Texas authorities will take steps to reign in this abuse of the criminal justice system.”

Lucio was charged with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from multiple prison management companies.

“Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong,” said Michael Cowen, Lucio’s attorney, in a statement.

Cowen accused Guerra of attempting to settle scores with “political enemies” through the indictments, and blamed the DA for turning the Willacy County court into a circus.

“This is not the first time that Guerra has attempted to turn the justice system into a circus," Cowen said. Cowen referenced a time last year when Guerra camped in front of the courthouse in a trailer with three goats, a chicken and a horse after his office was searched as part of the investigation into his indictment.

"In a recent court proceeding, presiding District Judge J. Manuel Bañales stated, ‘These kinds of cases have made Willacy County the laughing stock of the state and the nation,'" Cowen said.

Guerra, however, has successfully gone after the prison-politician link before, gaining guilty pleas from three county commissioners in South Texas after investigating bribery related to them and contacts within the prison companies.

Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge, alleging that the group allowed inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa, Jr. to death four days before his scheduled release. In 2006, a jury ordered The GEO Group to pay de la Rosa’s family $47.5 million in a civil judgment.

The indictments of Cheney and Gonzalez both made references to that case.

The court handed out indictments late Tuesday to five South Texas officials as well, all accused of abusing their offices related to the investigation of Guerra. Guerra, however, argued against charges of bias by saying that the grand jury made those indictments and not him.

“Corruption is out of control,” Guerra said.