Former Houston Police Captain investigating voter fraud holds air conditioning repairman at GUNPOINT believing he had 750,000 fake ballots in his truck - but it only contained tools and spare parts
Mark Anthony Aguirre, 63, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Tuesday - almost two months after he pulled a gun on an air conditioning technician
A former Houston Police Department Captain is facing up to 20 years behind bars for pointing a gun at an air conditioning technician he believed was engaged in a mass voting fraud operation
Mark Anthony Aguirre, 63, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Tuesday - almost two months after the altercation with the unidentified technician.
According to charging documents Aguirre had been conducting surveillance on the technician back in mid-October and theorized that the blue-collar worker was the mastermind of a giant fraud operation in Harris County, Texas.
On October 19, Aguirre allegedly trailed the technician in his SUV before deliberately slamming into the back of his truck, believing it was filled with 750,000 fake ballots.
After the collision, the man got out of the truck to speak with Aguirre, who then pulled out a gun.
The former police captain pointed the gun at the technician's head before he forced him to the ground and called cops to the scene.
Aguirre was previously a captain with the Houston Police Department . He was fired in 2003 after a botched raid in which nearly 300 people were arrested in a crackdown on illegal street racing
Aguirre told responding officers that he was a member of the Liberty Center For God and County - a group of civilians conducting an investigation into voter fraud ahead of the presidential election.
Cops searched the technician's truck and discovered no fraudulent ballots. The vehicle was filled with air condition parts and tools.
Prosecutors say the victim was 'an innocent and ordinary air conditioner repairman.'
At the time, Aguirre did not tell police he had allegedly been paid $266,400 by the Liberty Center for God and Country to investigate fraud.
On Tuesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg released a statement regarding Aguirre's charges, saying: 'His alleged investigation was backward from the start - first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened.
'He crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime, and we are lucky no one was killed.'
On Tuesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg released a statement regarding the former captain's charges, saying: 'His alleged investigation was backward from the start - first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened'
Aguirre's attorney, Terry Yates, has disputed the charge, calling it a 'political prosecution.'
He denies Aguirre deliberately ran into the technician's truck.
'He was working and investigating voter fraud, and there was an accident. A member of the car got out and rushed at him and that's where the confrontation took place. It's very different from what they're citing in the affidavit,' Yates claimed.
Aguirre has not commented on his connections with The Liberty Center For God and Country.
The Liberty Center describes it as an organization that 'promotes and protects our God-given, unalienable Constitutional rights and liberties through publications, conferences and events'.
In the days following the election, the group published a 'post election prayer' which stated in part: 'In the powerful name of Jesus, I declare the following, that every lying tongue would be silenced in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada.
'That those who devised and carried out wicked election fraud schemes intended to invalidate and nullify the expressed will of the voters would be exposed and charged with voter fraud.'
Aguirre is currently being held in prison on a $30,000 bond.
According to the Associated Press, he was fired from the Houston Police Department in 2003 after a botched raid in which nearly 300 people were arrested in a crackdown on illegal street racing.
Most of those who were arrested were not linked to street racing and the charges were dropped.