Criminal Justice
Texas Judge is Convicted of Perjury, Gets 30-Day Jail Term in Groping Case
Posted Aug 15, 2008, 09:41 am CST
By Martha Neil
A Texas judge accused of fondling a temporary worker and exposing himself to her has been convicted of perjuring himself in a related investigation.
A Kleberg County jury found Willacy County Judge Eliseo Barnhart guilty yesterday of two counts of aggravated perjury, and the judge in the case sentenced the 56-year-old jurist to 30 days in jail and five years of probation, reports the Valley Morning Star.
Barnhart apparently plans to appeal his felony conviction. Unless he wins, it is expected to result in his automatic removal from office, reports the Associated Press. He has been suspended with pay since September, when he was indicted.
Although he could have been sentenced to between 2 and 10 years in prison, family members, including his wife, pleaded for leniency and the jury recommended probation.
Defense attorney Sam Fugate, who is also the mayor of Kingsville, not far from Corpus Christi, where the trial was held, argued that Barnhart had already been punished enough, the newspaper article says.
"He lost his dignity, he lost his place in the community. He'll never recover from this," he told the jury. "Let him go back to his family. That's all he's got."
The conviction resulted from a complaint by temporary secretary Andrea Espinosa, 32, about an incident in February 2006:
"Barnhart had opened the office for Espinosa one evening after hours because she had left her purse. Espinosa testified that Barnhart pinned her to a wall, groping her breasts, kissing her and exposing himself," the AP article states.
The perjury case revolved around two allegedly conflicting statements Barnhart gave to Texas Rangers in August and September 2006 about what had happened. He eventually admitted the groping and kissing, but said Espinosa had asked him to touch her and denied exposing himself to her, the news agency reports.