USA - FBI to courthouse: Your phone has been tapped

OFF THE WIRE
By Guillermo Contreras
SAN ANTONIO — Judges in Bexar County got them. State and federal prosecutors in San Antonio and South Texas got them. So did defense lawyers, court clerks, secretaries and bondsmen.
And now courthouse regulars are scratching their heads, struggling to remember what they spoke about with a defense lawyer at the center of a federal corruption investigation.
The San Antonio Express-News has learned that hundreds of letters have been sent by federal authorities notifying people that a wiretap was used to eavesdrop on their phone calls and texts with Al Acevedo Jr., who is under investigation over allegations that he provided gifts or bribes to people within the criminal justice system for favors on his cases.
The letters do not mention Acevedo's name, but they list a target phone number that the Express-News confirmed Acevedo has used. What the letters also don't say is what evidence the FBI has collected, and against whom. Acevedo has been a lawyer for almost 30 years, with hundreds of clients in the state and federal systems in San Antonio and South Texas.
“This letter is being sent to you as a notice that you, or someone using a telephone on which you are the listed subscriber, were intercepted pursuant to a series of federally authorized wiretaps between August 20, 2013, and November 15, 2013,” said one version of the letters, which the Express-News reviewed.
A retired veteran FBI agent said the letters are telling because agents generally have to show a federal judge that the eavesdropping picked up on criminal activity in order to get more time to listen in.
“That (duration of the tap mentioned in the letter) suggests the wire definitely has criminal activity on it,” said James Wedich, who spent nearly 35 years with the FBI. “The judge gave them a number of extensions because he saw criminal activity. You've got one serious investigation going on.”
State District Judge Angus McGinty appears to have been the first major casualty of the federal probe. He announced his immediate resignation last Friday in the face of allegations that he reduced bail on defendants who appeared before him in exchange for auto repairs on his personal vehicles, sources said.
For more on this story, read the Saturday edition of the San Antonio Express-News or visit ExpressNews.com.

gcontreras@express-news.net

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