Arrested Socorro school board members interfered with and retaliated against district employees, the indictment says

Socorro Independent School District trustees Pablo Barrera and Ricardo “Richard’ Castellano, and his wife Gabriela Castellano, allegedly targeted district employees at schools with which they had personal ties, according to indictments unsealed Friday.

Ricardo Castellano, 61, and Gabriela Castellano, 57, were each charged with two counts of obstruction or retaliation involving Gabriela Elliott, a former principal at Bill Sybert School, where Gabriela Castellano was a third-grade teacher, according to one The indictment filed April 25 shows the El Paso County Circuit Clerk.

Their plot against Elliott began on August 21, 2021 and continued until March 30, 2022, according to the indictments. The indictment does not mention any specific actions, but El Paso Matters obtained an audio recording in 2022 that showed the Castellanos attempting to Remove Elliott as principal.

In the recording, Barrera bragged that he and Ricardo Castellano were “school board gods.”

The Castellanos were arrested Thursday and released on $4,000 bail. The charges are a third-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. It was not immediately clear why the arrests came two weeks after the charges were filed.

Barrera, 39, was indicted April 25 on eight counts of unlawful acts against Hueco Elementary School principal Greg Hatch and his boss, Socorro ISD assistant superintendent Melissa Parham, in 2022 and 2023. had committed.

Barrera’s child is a student at Hueco Elementary School.

He was arrested Thursday and released on bail totaling $6,000.

Mary Stillinger, an attorney representing the Castellanos and Barrera, said her clients were not given an opportunity to respond to the allegations before the arraignment.

She said Friday that Ricardo Castellano and Barrera “both raised many questions about the appropriateness of SISD’s activities.” Both have requested a review of these activities by external agencies. In fact, Mr. Castellano contacted TEA yesterday after Mr. Barrera’s arrest (when he did not yet know that he and his wife would also be arrested) to inform them of Mr. Barrera’s arrest.

“He wrote in an email to TEA, ‘I want to remind you again that we have come to you and your agency and laid out what we believe is wrong with Socorro ISD.’ We informed you then and several times since then that the district was after us. . . . All I can say is that we told you so.’”

Stillinger said: “We have seen the indictment and know that there are no facts to support these allegations.” She said the defendants look forward to clearing their names.

Two weeks after the indictment, prosecutors did not respond to questions about why the arrests were made.

Barrera was charged with four counts of obstruction or retaliation, the same offense charged against the Castellanos.

He also faces two counts of official oppression and one count each of coercion of a public official or voter and undue influence. These four charges are all Class A misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $4,000.

The obstruction or retaliation and coercion charges accuse Barrera of retaliating against Hatch between July 1, 2022 and September 15, 2023, and interfering with his ability to lead the school’s official proceedings on May 30, 2022.

The undue influence charge and one of the official oppression charges allege that Barrera attempted to illegally influence Parham – who oversaw Socorro ISD elementary schools – during an official proceeding on May 30, 2022.

The indictment against Barrera does not provide any details about his alleged illegal activities.

The charges were the result of an investigation by the Texas Rangers. According to the DPS website, the Texas Rangers are often tasked with investigating misconduct and corruption by public officials.

Barrera and Ricardo Castellano remain members of the Socorro ISD board of trustees, spokesman Daniel Escobar said.

Neither the district nor the school board has the authority to remove a trustee from elected office, a spokesperson for the Texas Association of School Boards told El Paso Matters.

“A judge could decide to remove a board member, but only after the criminal proceedings have been completed. It is important to remember due process and the principle that any person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Texas school board members cannot be removed from office by voters.

Barrera and Ricardo Castellano are both retired police officers – Barrera from the Border Patrol and Castellano from the El Paso Police Department. They were both elected in 2021 and their seats are up for election in May 2025.

Records of plans to remove a school principal

On August 10, 2021, while working at Bill Sybert School, Gabriela Castellano recorded conversations with her husband and Barrera in which they discussed plans to remove Elliott as principal.

She emailed the 33-hour audio recording to the Socorro ISD interim human resources director on August 30, 2021, as part of her complaint against Eliott and an assistant principal. The recording began with a conversation between Elliott and Gabriela Castellano and then continued until the next day.

In a conversation recorded by Gabriela Castellano after a school board meeting on August 10, 2021, Ricardo Castellano vowed to approach Interim Superintendent Marta Carmona to have Elliott removed as principal of Bill Sybert School.

“Maybe I should just file a complaint against this bitch and she can give me the complaint there,” Gabriela Castellano said.

“Well, I’ll deal with Carmona. If she wants to double down, protect Elliott, then we’ll (crosstalk). If not, let… See if she moves them. You know what? Your time has come and gone. She is a tyrant,” replied Ricardo Castellano.

El Paso Matters obtained a copy of the recording in December 2022 after the school district resisted releasing it for months, even after the Texas Attorney General’s Office ruled it must be released.

Gabriela Castellano also recorded a phone conversation between her husband and Barrera in which they discussed Elliott.

“I’m going to talk to Carmona about the headmistress, who thinks she’s a tough person. “I’m about to clip her wings,” said Ricardo Castellano.

“La vas a bayar del avion? Will you get her out of her high plane?” Barrera asks.

Elliott continued as principal of Bill Sybert School until the end of the 2021-22 school year, when she became principal of Socorro Middle School. She is currently the principal of Eastlake Middle School in Socorro ISD.

Gabriela Castellano was placed on leave in March 2022 and assigned to James P. Butler Elementary. Most recently, she was a PK-8 reading interventionist at Bobby Joe Hill PK-8 School in El Paso ISD. EPISD officials did not respond to a question from El Paso Matters about their status Friday.

Texas Education Agency Research

The Texas Education Agency had received multiple complaints about inappropriate behavior by Barrera and the Castellanos during a three-year investigation that ended when the district agreed in March to accept the appointment of state conservators to help oversee the district.

The complaints against Barrera and the Castellanos were not mentioned in the investigative report but were included in an appendix. The investigation into the complaints mentioned in the appendix ended when the school board agreed to the appointment of conservators.

During an interview in March, the Castellanos told El Paso Matters that they believe they are being targeted by the school district and the TEA for leaking previously unapproved scholarships found in the investigation.

They provided no evidence that they were targeted.

TEA spokesman Jake Kobersky said conservators Michael Hinojosa and Andrew Kim were aware of the arrests. He said the arrests do not change the state’s additional oversight of Socorro ISD “at this point.”

Kobersky said that TEA “had no information about the scope of a law enforcement investigation (when it assigned Socorro conservators). As a matter of standard practice, the agency cooperates fully when law enforcement requests information or assistance.”

6:55 p.m. Friday, May 10: This story has been updated with comments from Mary Stillinger, attorney for Pablo Barrera and Ricardo and Gabriela Castellano.