Prosecutors: Kornegay admits retaliation
HARLINGEN — Special prosecutors told city commissioners on Wednesday that Sun Valley Aviation owner Patrick Kornegay admitted that his call for an ethics investigation of two airport board members this spring was retaliatory.
Airport Board President Rick Ledesma and board member Jim Solis were exonerated of any ethics violations in the prosecutors’ Aug. 25 report.
Ledesma and Solis voted against Kornegay’s 2008 proposal to use $1.5 million of city economic development money to build a hangar at Valley International Airport for his new aircraft services business, the special prosecutors’ report states.
The special prosecutors, Harlingen Police Det. W. Stan Duncan and attorney Thomas Sullivan, state in their report that, “the timing of the allegation of unethical conduct strikes this investigation as retaliatory and an effort to coerce or at least influence a public servant in the specific performance of his official duties.”
Commissioner Robert Leftwich asked at Wednesday’s city commission meeting how investigators arrived at that conclusion.
“I told (Kornegay), ‘This is a very important question,’” Duncan said. “I phrased it exactly like that. ‘Did you make this complaint as a mechanism or as a way of getting Mr. Solis out of the picture … because he voted against the establishment
of the second (aircraft services business)?’”
“To that (Kornegay) replied, ‘yes I did,’” Duncan said.
The prosecutors said Kornegay made that admission during the investigation of Solis and Ledesma.
Kornegay on Friday would not comment on Wednesday’s commission meeting, saying that he had been out of the country at the time and had to review all the information.
“I will reserve my comments until I’ve had time to see what was said and what the situation is,” Kornegay said.
In Wednesday’s meeting, commissioner Jerry Prepejchal questioned whether the prosecutors’ report should be turned over to the district attorney’s office to determine if Kornegay should be charged with coercion of a public official, a felony.
“I think that’s premature at this point,” Commissioner Robert Leftwich said later. “We really need to wait and let our new city attorney come in and review the facts and make recommendations as to where she thinks the commission needs to
go.”
“Basically (we need) to look at all aspects of how … Kornegay’s comments may have affected that proposal,” he said.
