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Ex-HPD captain accused of holding repairman at gunpoint in bogus voter-fraud conspiracy, prosecutors say
What was believed to be 750,000 fraudulent ballots ended up being air conditioning parts, prosecutors say
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HOUSTON – A former Houston police captain has been charged after being accused of holding a repairman at gunpoint in a bogus voter-fraud conspiracy, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
The former captain, Mark Anthony Aguirre, 63, was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. If found guilty, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
Aguirre, who went to authorities with pre-election claims that a massive voter fraud scheme was underway in Harris County, is accused of running a man off the road while pointing a gun at his head in an attempt to prove his claims, prosecutors said.
Houston Police Department via AP
Aguirre spent 24 years in the Houston Police Department before he was fired in 2003 over his role in a failed raid in a department store s parking lot.
An air-conditioning repairman was driving his truck through Houston in late October when suddenly a black SUV slammed into his tail. When he got out, the SUV s driver leaped out and pointed a gun at his head, police said. When police arrived, the gunman offered an incredible tale: The driver, he said, was the face of a vast election-fraud scheme and had about 750,000 fake ballots stuffed inside his truck.
December 16, 2020 10:57 a.m.
A former Houston police captain convinced of a vast conspiracy to steal the election allegedly ran a man off the road and held him at gunpoint, believing there were thousands of illegal ballots in the back of the man’s box truck.
In fact, Mark Anthony Aguirre’s alleged victim was an ordinary air conditioner repairman, prosecutors say. There was nothing fishy in the back of his truck, nor in the repairman’s home in a nearby mobile home community in Houston, which Aguirre said he and others had surveilled for four days straight, police said.
But it gets stranger: The day after the ex-cop allegedly held the terrified repairman at gunpoint, convinced of a massive election conspiracy that did not exist, he received a wire transfer for $211,400, according to prosecutors. The money came from a conservative group that’s pumped up election fraud conspiracy theories, and which is led by prominent right-wing activists in Texas.
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An ex-cop held an A/C repairman at gunpoint over a false claim he had 750,000 fake ballots, police said
Andrea Salcedo, The Washington Post
Dec. 16, 2020
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An air-conditioning repairman was driving his truck through Houston in late October when suddenly a black SUV slammed into his tail. When he got out, the SUV s driver leaped out and pointed a gun at his head, police said.
When police arrived, the gunman offered an incredible tale: The driver, he said, was the face of a vast election-fraud scheme and had about 750,000 fake ballots stuffed inside his truck.