6/12/2014
McALLEN — Two McAllen residents said in a lawsuit filed last week that they were victims of an illegal raid by former members of a corrupt drug task force.
Edinburg attorney David Flores filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court on behalf of David Carrizales and Rogelia Stabolito, who said they were victimized by members of the Panama Unit.
The lawsuit doesn’t specify a monetary demand, but it does seek damages for mental anguish, loss of reputation and to defend against false charges.
Carrizales and Stabolito claim in the lawsuit that on June 7, 2012 they were heading to their home on the 1400 block of Zinnia Avenue in McAllen when they noticed a white Chevrolet Tahoe following them. Once the couple got home, some of the Panama Unit members stormed the house waving firearms as they dragged Carrizales out of the house and struck him the head several times, the attorney wrote in the lawsuit.
The narcotics agents demanded money, drugs or information of where they could find some, when Carrizales was not able to give them any of those they arrested him on a possession of marijuana charge, the lawsuit shows.
The lawsuit names Hidalgo County, the City of Mission those in charge of the Panama Unit.
The Panama Unit was a narcotics unit made up of Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies and former Mission police investigator Jonathan Treviño — son of the former sheriff — who were convicted of stealing drugs from narcotics smugglers only to sell them to a rival trafficker.
Following the corrupt lawmen’s convictions, the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office dismissed more than 100 cases that members of the Panama Unit had worked on.
The unit was also linked to at least one home invasion from where one member took jewelry as well as other corrupt actions including escorting drug loads.
Since December 2012, the Panama Unit jumped into local headlines when federal authorities arrested the first group of corrupt cops including Treviño.
Former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino pleaded guilty in April a separate but related case where he took money from Weslaco drug lord Tomas “El Gallo” Gonzalez. Both Treviños are named in the most recent lawsuit — Jonathan for his active role in the raid and Lupe for his role as the ultimate supervisor of the narcotics unit.
The latest lawsuit against the Panama Unit beat the statute of limitations to file litigation from the alleged June 2012 incident by two days.
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