All cops lie: TABC edition

[PilotsError 2338]

They're all pieces of shit, at every level.  And fuck the District Attorney's comments at the end.  Human fucking garbage.

 

 

In court, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agent Jonathan Jergins described the undercover operation as an open-and-shut case: the bartender served a teenager beer, end of story.

He said he recalled the details of the sting clearly — right up to the point when it became evident that it was the agent himself who was getting stung. Now, Jergins is being investigated by the alcoholic beverage agency’s internal affairs department, and a district attorney is reviewing his conduct.

College Station sting operation shows TABC agent handing beer to minor

Volume 90%

During this College Station sting operation, a TABC agent picks up a beer and hands it to a minor – not what he said in court.

Video: Craig Greening

The operation unfolded on a September evening in College Station. Jergins and a partner had targeted Rebel Draft House, a popular bar on the edge of the Texas A&M University campus. The plan was to bust bartenders serving underage customers.

TABC typically conducts two types of undercover sting operations. Sales to an intoxicated patron stings can be deceptively complicated. Undercover agents must personally observe the offending sale, as well as prove a customer is so drunk that a bartender could not help but notice. In recent years, bars have successfully used security camera footage to argue a patron tagged by a TABC agent as grossly intoxicated was not visibly drunk.

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By comparison, sales to minor stings are simple. When a plainclothes agent observes a bartender serve his teenaged accomplice, the case is effectively made. The vast majority are uncontested and quickly settled.

The bar was crowded with families for Aggie parents weekend. Jergins was accompanied by two teenaged girls TABC hired for the evening. “We try very hard to use very youthful-in-appearance minors to be able to make it that much more obvious that that minor should not be sold alcohol,” Jergins explained later.

As Jergins stood behind her, one of the girls, a 17-year-old wearing a maroon A&M shirt and jeans, ordered a beer. The agent said he watched bartender Allen Frick check her driver’s license, yet “the bartender poured the drink out of the beer tap and served the alcoholic drink to the minor.”

Caught in the act, Rebel’s owners accepted the equivalent of a warning against their state license to sell alcohol. Frick, meanwhile, was criminally charged for giving the teen a beer. He faced a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Frick’s attorney, Craig Greening, said the Brazos County attorney quickly offered a deal — a fine, probation, community service hours. Yet the bartender balked. Despite the TABC agent’s report, Frick insisted Jergins wasn’t telling the truth about what actually happened that night.

Stingee becomes a stinger

Frick agreed he’d checked the girl’s ID and saw she was underage. He said he explained that she was too young for him to serve her.

Yet, he continued, he’d also observed an older man standing next to her - agent Jergins — and so asked if it was her father. “And she looks at him; and she nods like this and says ‘Yeah.’"

In Texas, bars can serve minor children alcohol so long as it “is in the visible presence of the minor’s adult parent.” Frick’s manager had mentioned the law before that evening’s shift, he recalled — “since it was parents' weekend and there were a lot of parents out, that it was legal to give the drink to the parent as long as I don't hand it directly to the minor.”

In other words, if Frick gave the beer to the teen’s parent, and the parent gave it to her, there was no violation. And he remembered it was Jergins he gave the beer to. “I said, ‘There you go, sir’… I kept watching to make sure that he grabbed it.”

Even better, Frick had proof.

Greening, Frick’s lawyer, said although he encourages bars to install security cameras, many don’t because of the cost. Rebel’s footage from that night quickly debunked the TABC agent’s version of events. After pouring the beer, Frick slides it toward the TABC agent. Jenkins picks it up, turns and hands it to the girl. They then walk away together.

Greening, a former prosecutor who represents bar employees, concedes the easy call would’ve been to send the footage to Brazos County prosecutors, who presumably would drop the charges after seeing TABC’s agent had used false information to charge Frick.

Instead, he decided to conduct a sting of his own.

‘It wouldn’t have happened that way’

Greening considered it payback. “Over the years, I’ve heard so many complaints from bars that TABC makes cases, but they’re not real cases,” he said. “We think they lie.”

Hunter Shurtleff, who has represented College Station bars and restaurants for 15 years, said he, too, felt TABC agents had unfairly brought cases against local bars, particularly in sales to intoxicated patron stings. “There’s a lot of problems with their enforcement,” he said.

So “When I saw the video,” Greening said, “I thought, ‘The chickens have come home to roost.’” Unlike prosecutors, defense attorneys don’t have to turn over all their evidence. He kept the video secret.

The trial was November 28. Questioned by assistant county attorney Kathryn Bradley, Jergins stated that after Frick poured the beer, his teenager “took the drink off the bar and then handed me the alcoholic drink.”

Greening questioned the agent next. “It would have been against policy for you to receive the beer from [Frick] and then give it to [the teenager], is that right?”

“Well,” Jergins answered, “it wouldn’t have happened that way.”

But if it had, “that would be illegal, right?”

Jergins: “The way you’re describing, yes, sir.”

Greening: “That’s against the law. It’s called making alcohol available to a minor, right? ...You can receive up to a year in jail?”

Jergins: “And a $4,000 fine, yes, sir.”

Greening unveiled the video. By his watch, the jury took about 20 minutes to return with its not guilty verdict.

Chris Porter, a spokesman for TABC, said the agency has opened an internal investigation into Jergins’ inaccurate testimony. (Due to the pending investigation, he added, Jergins could not comment.) Brazos County District Attorney Jarvis Parsons said his office was reviewing the case to see if it merits prosecution.

Brazos County Attorney Rod Anderson, whose office prosecuted the case, said he was reluctant to say Agent Jergins lied. “Obviously what happened is different from what was described in his report,” he said. “Yes, he misstated the transaction that took place. But we felt it was nothing intentional.”

To Greening, it’s a distinction without much of a difference. He understands it’s just a bar and a beer, not a death penalty case. But, he said, it matters when police at any level can’t be trusted.

“Were it not for the video,” he pointed out, “my client could have been a convicted criminal.”

 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/In-this-undercover-operation-it-was-the-booze-13665356.php?fbclid=IwAR3CuA6k6U02ok1TKgC3vIge-HVkUIvmeHpx5vTH3WuVQF_ucyaMxN1L6BI

[HawaiiHorn 8]

TABC sucks!

[Dennis Taylor 19070]

that's some bullshit...the TABC schlep should have been fired and prosecuted immediately. and he's probably done that a hundred times. 

those fuckstains were all over where i grew up and were straight up assholes. their horrible suits were a dead giveaway. I felt fortunate to only have received one $75 MIP in my illustrious underage drinking career. I could scale a backyard fence faster than Edwin Moses in those days and put that skill to use many times when those assholes would show up and start rounding kids up for the MIP party

Edited March 7, 2019 by Dennis Taylor

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

I hope the DA chokes of his meal of dicks.  When a cop lies, it's "nothing intentional," even if that lie would have resulted in a wrongful conviction if there wasn't video evidence of the lie.  What a fucking cuck.  No doubt he's on the fast track for a judgeship in Aggieland with that sort of reasoning.

[Chewbacca 7793]

DAs covering for lying shitbag cops?  Never heard of it happening before...

[relapse98 634]

1 hour ago, PilotsError said:

“Yes, he misstated the transaction that took place. But we felt it was nothing intentional.”

I mean, I think if he has alzheimers, he probably shouldn't have a badge and gun, but that's just me.

Stupid or liar, which is it? Neither one reflects well on you and either one, you need to lose the badge.

[relapse98 634]

I have a TABC card so I can volunteer at local nonprofit events where beer is sold that helps the nonprofit. I don't get paid, get nothing out of it except to flirt on milfs and maybe get a beer or 2 at the end of the night. I check ID like a motherfucker. If you appear the least bit drunk, you aren't getting anything but a free soda from me. But TABC has made it so that I don't really want to volunteer my time (for free mind you) selling beer because they can do a sting on me, just like this guy, and I can get fined $4000. Talk about no good dead going unpunished.

Edited March 7, 2019 by relapse98

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

On the one hand, yeah, pigs are pigs and they suck. But in the other hand, they were busting aggy, so I am pretty conflicted.

[4th and 5 4926]

44 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

DAs covering for lying shitbag cops?  Never heard of it happening before...

Same shit happened to me yesterday when I exposed a cop committing perjury and tampering with a governmental record on an essential allegation in a search warrant affidavit.....and then I got him to admit he had done it a few more times!

Prosecutor: “Yes, he misstated what took place. But we felt it was nothing intentional.”

 

[luke duke 6420]

I have a TABC card so I can volunteer at local nonprofit events where beer is sold that helps the nonprofit. I don't get paid, get nothing out of it except to flirt on milfs and maybe get a beer or 2 at the end of the night. I check ID like a motherfucker. If you appear the least bit drunk, you aren't getting anything but a free soda from me. But TABC has made it so that I don't really want to volunteer my time (for free mind you) selling beer because they can do a sting on me, just like this guy, and I can get fined $4000. Talk about no good dead going unpunished.

What nonprofit is selling alcohol?

[relapse98 634]

13 minutes ago, luke duke said:

What nonprofit is selling alcohol?

I know around here the county fair, a large german festival, senior center, Eagles, Catholics, bowling clubs, Elks, VFW, American Legion, etc.

Edited March 7, 2019 by relapse98

[Asithappens 974]

13 minutes ago, luke duke said:

 

What nonprofit is selling alcohol?

 

A lot of churches do,in an indirect way.

[relapse98 634]

7 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

A lot of churches do,in an indirect way.

"indirect" as in I'm looking at a license where the trade name is literally "Church's Name" Hall. There aint no indirect - they be dealing.

Not to mention Knights of Columbus.

Edited March 7, 2019 by relapse98

[The Dude 1253]

3 hours ago, relapse98 said:

I mean, I think if he has alzheimers, he probably shouldn't have a badge and gun, but that's just me.

Stupid or liar, which is it? Neither one reflects well on you and either one, you need to lose the badge.

No doubt. He should probably be coaching at a big 10 school in Ohio with those qualifications

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

The lawyer and client taking it to trial instead of sending the tape to a DA to let the case die a quiet death makes them heroes in my book.

[WBT 20757]

1 hour ago, Larry T. Spider said:

The lawyer and client taking it to trial instead of sending the tape to a DA to let the case die a quiet death makes them heroes in my book.

Question for the law dogs - wouldn't this coming out in open court make it impossible for this guy to get convictions for any future stings?

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

37 minutes ago, WBT said:

Question for the law dogs - wouldn't this coming out in open court make it impossible for this guy to get convictions for any future stings?

And what about all the previous cases where people went to jail or paid thousands based on a he said/she said? Juries believe cops in that situation.

[relapse98 634]

Oh it's definitely going to cause issues for his previous cases. He done fucked TABC big time. Good. Sad thing is we the taxpayers will be paying for it.