A popular – though controversial – alternative journalist and Facebook blogger from Laredo, Texas, has been arrested on felony charges for revealing the name of a federal employee who killed himself before police had the opportunity to put out an official press release.
Priscilla Villarreal, 32, known by her self-deprecating nickname ‘La Gordiloca,’ which means a ‘the fat crazy woman’ in Spanish, has emerged as one of the most preeminent journalists in Laredo.
Her Facebook page, ‘Lagordiloca News LaredoTx,’ has 84,000 followers, who eagerly tune in to watch her nighttime dispatches from the gritty streets of Laredo often involving police activity.
Priscilla Villarreal, 32, a Laredo, Texas, news blogger known as ‘La Gordiloca,’ has been arrested on felony charges for revealing the name of a federal employee who killed himself before police had the opportunity to put out an official press release
Social media outlet: Villarreal’s Facebook page, ‘ Lagordiloca News LaredoTx ,’ has 84,000 followers
However, Villarreal’s nightly excursions in her blue Dodge Ram pickup truck and her hot-take broadcasts vie Facebook Live have done little to endear herself on the local police force, according to the blogger.
The alleged acrimony between the woman and the Laredo cops finally came to ahead on December 13, when Villarreal was taken into police custody on two counts of misuse of official information. Each charge, a third-degree felony, is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The charges stemmed from Villarreal’s reporting on the suicide of a US Customs and Border Protection manager, who took his own life by jumping from a local overpass earlier this year.
Villarreal publicized the agent’s name on Facebook before the local police department had a chance to release a statement addressing the incident.
According to an email sent to DailyMail.com by the Laredo Police Department, Villarreal obtained the name of the deceased Border Patrol employee from Barbara Goodman, a 19-year veteran patrol officer.
Goodman has been placed on an administrative reassignment pending the outcomes of ongoing criminal and internal investigations, but she has not been charged with a crime in this case.
Villarreal has denied that Goodman, whom she called a friend, was her source, claiming that the CBP employee’s name came from one of her many tipsters around town.
‘The officers are angry at the fact’ that people ‘give me the information first,’ she told The Washington Post.
Villarreal has been charged with two third-degree felony counts of misuse of official information with intent to obtain a benefit. Her lawyer says no benefit was ever obtained
The DailyMail.com on Monday reached out to Villerreal requesting an interview.
Villearreal writes in the description of a GoFundMe campaign she has launched that the charges against her were ‘fabricated’ as a way to censor and stop her from reporting on what she decried as as ‘political and law enforcement corruption.’
She goes on to say: ‘we live in a free society where we will not let the police dictate who gets to be free and who gets to go to jail because they exercised their freedom of speech.’
In response to a request for comment, Laredo Police Department spokesman Joe Baeza released a statement on Monday arguing that the law enforcement agency has a dual duty to protect the public’s freedom of speech right, as well as the right to privacy.
‘As a law enforcement agency we are entrusted with sensitive information which relates to criminal investigations and citizen’s private affairs,’ Baeza writes. ‘As custodians of such vital information we are also tasked with the appropriate disclosure of such information under the law.’
The statement goes on to describe the Villarreal case as ‘an open, fluid investigation that has not been finalized. All matters related to the case will be turned over to the District Attorney’s Office for their review and evaluation upon completion.’
Constitutional argument: Villarreal believes her freedom of speech right has been violated by police because of a personal vendetta
Under the Texas Penal Code, a person commits ‘misuse of official information’ if he or she solicits or receives from a public servant information that ‘the public servant has access to by means of his office or employment and has not been made public,’ with the intent to obtain a benefit.
According to a criminal complaint, first obtained by Texas Monthly, the ‘benefit’ that Villearreal had obtained by disclosing the suicide victim’s name ahead of other news outlets – and before the official release by the Laredo Police Department’s Public Information Officer – was increased popularity on Facebook.
Villarreal’s attorney Sergio Lozano, as well as independent legal experts, say the Laredo authorities might be headed for a bruising First Amendment fight.
Lozano told KGNS-TV that regardless of what people might think of his client and her line of work, the bottom line is that her right to freedom of speech has been violated.