Former Houston Police Captain Accused of Pointing Gun at Air Conditioner Repairman, Believing He Was a ‘Mastermind’ of Voter Fraud

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Prosecutors say former Houston police captain Mark Anthony Aguirre said he believed the man was carrying fraudulent ballots.

“I believe it is a political prosecution,” Terry Yates, Aguirre’s attorney, told CNN subsidiary KTRK.

Prosecutors say Aguirre paid more than a quarter of a million dollars by a private group called the “Liberty Center for God and Country” to investigate alleged ballots in the Houston area.

CNN has reached out to Hotze for comment.

According to the prosecutor’s press release, Aguirre, 63, told authorities that he had been monitoring an unidentified man driving a truck that he suspected contained 750,000 fraudulent ballots for four days. The release said Aguirre believed the man was “the brain of a giant (voter) fraudster.”

Instead, prosecutors say the victim was an “innocent and ordinary” air conditioner repairman.

“Aguirre hit his SUV into the back of the truck to stop the technician and get out,” said the press release, detailing the October 19 incident. “As the mechanic got out of the truck, Aguirre pointed a gun at the mechanic, forced him to the floor and put his knee on the man’s back – an image captured on a police officer’s body-worn camera.”

The responding authorities found no ballots in the vehicle, only parts and tools for air conditioners, prosecutors said.

After an investigation, Houston police said they found the election fraud allegations “unfounded” and referred the matter to the district attorney’s office.

Aguirre had received more than $ 260,000 from the Liberty Center group, according to prosecutors, and received about $ 211,400 the day after the incident.

He was arrested Tuesday and is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said. He is currently in a Harris County Jail on $ 30,000 bail.

“He crossed the line from dirty politics to committing a violent crime and we’re lucky no one was killed,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. “His alleged investigation was backward from the start – first he claimed a crime had happened and then tried to prove it happened.”

Yates, Aguirre’s lawyer, told CNN partner KTRK: “He was working and investigating voter fraud, there was an accident … A member of the car got out and rushed to him and there the confrontation took place. instead. It’s very different from what you quote in the affidavit. “

Prosecutors’ statement about Aguirre’s arrest came a day after the Electoral College voted to confirm Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.

Despite the announcement of election results by media outlets and government officials, outgoing President Donald Trump continues to argue that widespread voter fraud took place during the 2020 election, and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for a so-called legal defense fund, despite official certifications that former Vice President Joe Biden won the presidential election.

CNN’s Ashley Killough contributed to this report.

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