Sylvia Handy sentencing postponed over 'newly discovered letter'

McALLEN — Sylvia Handy hoped a last-minute written confession from one of her accusers might spare her from receiving a lengthy prison sentence Wednesday.

Turns out she was right — but not in the way she expected.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa postponed making a sentencing decision for the former Hidalgo County commissioner after questions arose over the authenticity of a four-page letter exonerating her of criminal wrongdoing.

Handy purportedly discovered the document — ostensibly written by a former housekeeper — while cleaning out boxes in her Weslaco home five days before her sentencing date. But prosecutors allege the erstwhile elected official faked the missive in hopes of sparing herself.

“Finally, after all this time, she finds this out of nowhere?” Hinojosa asked incredulously from the bench. “I don’t even know if someone would buy that in a political campaign.”

LAST-MINUTE DISCOVERY

Handy pleaded guilty in March to one count each of tax fraud and conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants, stemming from allegations she put at least five undocumented women who worked as her domestic servants on the payroll of her Precinct 1 office to avoid paying them out of her own pocket.

But in the intervening months, government lawyers and her defense attorney have sparred over what exactly she meant in admitting guilt and what that should mean as far as her sentence.

Prosecutors have urged the court to send the former commissioner to prison for up to six years.

But Handy, who has asked for probation, has maintained all along that she never knowingly violated any law. While she did put at least one undocumented immigrant on her payroll, she was not aware the woman was in the country illegally until after the woman left county employment, Handy has said in court filings.

During Wednesday’s court proceedings, Handy’s attorney Al Alvarez touted the “previously undisclosed” confession as evidence that his client was right all along.

The document outlines how one of the undocumented servants purportedly landed job after job within Precinct 1 under three assumed names without the commissioner’s help or knowledge.

Beatriz “Betty” Garcia — the alleged author — worked in Handy’s home and was paid with taxpayer funds for four months despite lacking legal status to live and work in the U.S. She is also the subject of the one conspiracy count to which the commissioner pleaded guilty.

Citing the confession, Alvarez urged the judge to postpone his client’s sentencing hearing to explore whether the government knew about the confession and failed to disclose it as exculpatory evidence, which would be a violation of federal law.

FAKE CONFESSION?

But as prosecutors presented their case Wednesday, it became clear that the document’s claimed origin was at best suspicious and at worst a blatant fraud.

“(Handy) typed it originally and gave it to Garcia,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez said. “They believed if she would do this, that would basically quash the investigation and leave only a single sheep to the slaughter.”

Garcia’s sister, Amelia — who also worked as a babysitter in the Handy household — testified that her ex-employer wrote the confession herself in 2007 as investigators zeroed in on the illegal hiring.

She convinced Beatriz Garcia to shoulder the blame because the woman had no children and would probably receive probation if found guilty, Amelia Garcia said.

“We were trying to come up with a story to stop the investigation,” she said. “(Handy) thought that if we could make the public and the media feel sorry for us, the judge would be more lenient on Betty.”

Part of that tactic included drafting the fake confession, which Handy allegedly wrote on a typewriter so federal agents could never trace it back to one of her home computers.

Once the letter was written, Handy purportedly gave it to the Garcia sisters to retype on their own and kept the original for herself.

“She put it and the typewriter ribbon in a cardboard box and said she would burn them when her husband was burning stuff,” Amelia Garcia testified. “I didn’t see her do it. I don’t know if she did.”

‘POLITICAL CAMPAIGN’

Throughout the day’s testimony, Handy sat next to her lawyer with a smile on her face. At times, Hinojosa, the judge, scolded her for attempting to mouth words at witnesses or court observers.

The attorneys, too, did not escape the judge’s ire. Hinojosa accused Alvarez of needlessly stalling the sentencing and again raised questions for prosecutors over why they failed to file charges in connection with Handy’s apparent misuse of county money.

But after four hours of mounting evidence against her, Hinojosa dismissed Handy until Tuesday with a warning.

“This is not a political campaign,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how many campaign workers you have or how many political ads you buy.

“This is not something where we will find out the facts once the campaign is over. We will find them out before the sentencing.”