Handy charged with additional criminal counts

McALLEN — Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy is expected to return to court Monday to face new charges in connection with an ongoing tax fraud and illegal hiring case.

A superseding indictment handed down against her last week alleges the elected official paid a third illegal immigrant woman with taxpayer money to perform housekeeping and babysitting services in her home.

The new allegations come seven months after federal prosecutors first accused her of a similar scheme involving two other women and nearly double the total she purportedly stole from county coffers to almost $220,000.

Since her arrest, Handy has maintained her innocence on multiple counts of conspiracy, tax fraud and harboring illegal immigrants, her attorney Al Alvarez said Thursday. She will enter a plea of not guilty plea to the two additional charges.

"This is going to go to trial," he said. "Her stance has not changed."

Investigators believe Handy hired three immigrant women starting in 2001 and had them fill out job applications with her Precinct 1 office under assumed names.

In the case of Beatriz Adriana Garcia Caudillo — the woman added to the indictment last week — Handy twice gave her the names and identifying information of two U.S. citizens to use on job applications, the superseding indictment states.

Even though they never did any actual work for the county, the three women received hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary over a period of five years, benefits such as vacation, health care and sick time and contributions to a state retirement fund, prosecutors allege. According to court filings, one was twice named Precinct 1 Employee of the Month without ever having set foot in the office.

One of the women — Maria de los Angeles Landa de Hernandez, 27 — pleaded guilty in May to one count of conspiracy and is believed to be cooperating with federal investigators in the ongoing case. The two others, including Garcia, have not been charged.

In addition to the immigration-related allegations, Handy and her husband, Juan Gabriel Espronceda, also face charges for allegedly housing the women in their Weslaco home and claiming their salaries on federal income tax forms as if they had paid the women themselves.

If convicted on all counts, she would lose her position and could face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

First elected in 1996, Handy is the longest-serving member of the Hidalgo County Commissioners Court and oversees a precinct that stretches from Donna to the Cameron County line.