Ethical Issues with Sheriff Salazar
We’re all already aware of the incident where Sheriff Javier Salazar, with the help of then D.A. Nico LaHood, ignored the fact that an employee lied on a sworn statement, in a vicious attempt to get an officer fired, and reversed all disciplinary against her. In addition, the employee was reimbursed over $40, 000 out of tax payers money. What was it that made it all go away? Could it be that the employee spent a large amount of time and effort campaigning for both Javier Salazar and Nico LaHood?
Sheriff Salazar didn’t care that the employee was a latent print examiner who testified in court on various cases and any question as to her honesty could risk those cases being thrown out. He didn’t seem to care in the least about what was in the best interest of Bexar County. All we can infer from his actions is that he felt she deserved political payback for getting him in office. No one else was allowed to state the reality of what happened. Salazar spun the story and even with his spin it stunk to high heaven. But that was last year.
This year, Sheriff Salazar hired his campaign manager, from his 2016 run, at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. Robert Vargas III was hired as a Change Management Specialist on January 14, 2019. Robert Vargas is not supposed to be working on anything to do with Salazar’s campaign while on duty. Does anyone really believe that won’t happen? If he does it means that the citizens of Bexar County are paying this man to help elect Sheriff Salazar. Not only is this a violation of the Sheriff’s Office policies but it’s highly unethical.
Sheriff Salazar says Vargas was hired because he needed someone who was an expert in legislative issues but if that’s the case why did Salazar wait two years to put Vargas in that position? Is it just coincidence that he hired Vargas right before the primaries were going to start? When KENS 5 tried to find out who else applied for the job the Sheriff’s Office gave them a letter supposedly showing three people were interviewed but they redacted the names of the other two people and refuse to say anything more about them. It has to make you wonder if there ever were two other people. And if you listen to the video below you will see that Vargas fully believes he is working towards getting Salazar re-elected in 2020.
There are already questions about Vargas performing prohibited (illegal?) acts by campaigning while working and all Sheriff Salazar can do is hem and haw about working various hours. It would be interesting to hear what the non-command staff employees of the Sheriff’s Office have to say about the duties Mr. Vargas performs.
To read the KENS 5 article, click here. View the video below.