A Rio Grande Valley immigration attorney allegedly paid three immigration detention center employees for lists of detained immigrants' names and personal information, so the lawyer could solicit the immigrants' legal business, according to a recent indictment.

The indictment charges three immigration detention center employees—Benito Barrientez, Damian Ortiz and Exy Adelaida Gomez—with conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery, which respectively could bring 15 years and five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine per each charge. It's not clear who the attorney is, or even if it's a man or woman, because the indictment only identifies the lawyer as “Person A.”

When asked for more information about the attorney, Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas, wrote in an email, “There is nothing in the public record that indicates charges against anyone else or names anyone else.”

According to the indictment, the defendants all worked for Management and Training Corp., which contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house detained immigrants. At the Willacy County Regional Detention Center in Raymondville, Barrientez was a classification clerk and Ortiz was senior program director. Gomez worked as a detention officer at the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville.

All three defendants would obtain alien detainee rosters, which have names, dates of birth, home countries, detention identification numbers, and housing assignments, from the El Valle and Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos. The rosters contain sensitive information meant for law enforcement use only, and it's strictly prohibited to remove them from detention centers, noted the indictment.

But Barrientez and Ortiz on multiple occasions in January took payments ranging from $200 to $1,000 from the attorney and then give the rosters to the lawyer, or people working with him or her, according to the court filing.

Then, on Jan. 15, someone in the attorney's law firm visited a Honduran immigrant in the El Valle detention center to ask the immigrant to hire the firm for an immigration case.

William R. “Bill” Edwards Sr. of Corpus Christi's Edwards Law Firm said he thinks that the attorney in this case could face a criminal charge for barratry, or the illegal solicitation of a legal client. The attorney might also face civil lawsuits from the immigrants who were improperly solicited. Texas has a civil statute that allows a client to sue an attorney for barratry, Edwards said, meaning the client could seek a fee forfeiture for the underlying case and also collect attorney fees in the civil barratry lawsuit.

“Each of the people who were solicited would be subject to the civil action,” said Edwards, who has represented clients who sued lawyers for civil barratry.

But Herring & Panzer partner Chuck Herring of Austin, who represents attorneys facing discipline cases, said that he's unsure if the facts of this case qualify as criminal or civil barratry. However, if the lawyer is charged with bribery, that criminal case could bring ethics charges and attorney discipline.

“Lawyers can't commit crimes,” Herring said. “You can't bribe. That's sort of a no-brainer.”

Herring said disciplinary rules prohibit attorneys from committing serious crimes or engaging in any criminal act that reflects badly on the attorney's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer. The rules say a lawyer can't engage in dishonesty, deceit, fraud or misrepresentation. If the attorney here is indicted and convicted, it could lead to compulsory discipline, he said.

Herring added that immigration attorneys can drum up good business from detained immigrants, who bring their life savings to cross the border and still have cash, or whose U.S.-based families will pay for a lawyer. Immigrants might make an easy target for an unscrupulous attorney because of what they've been through, the fact they sometimes speak little to no English, and their lack of knowledge of the U.S. legal system, he said.

Herring said, “It's so sad, because it's such a vulnerable population.”

Read the indictment: