Prosecutors have charged a 52-year-old associate of a disgraced former Texas judge with wire fraud for orchestrating a payoff to the judge in exchange for a favorable ruling.
The FBI says Jose Manuel Longoria is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing in a Brownsville court on Tuesday.
The San Benito man was arrested the same day last week that former state District Judge Abel C. Limas pleaded guilty to racketeering. The U.S. attorney's office says Limas took at least $250,000 in bribes.
Prosecutors say someone in Arkansas wired Longoria $1,800 in 2008 so that Rimas would allow a person on probation in Texas for aggravated assault to report to their probation officer by mail, rather than in person.
Prosecutors didn't indicate whether anyone else would be charged.
