'A good person who made mistakes': Former chief's apparent suicide rattles Rio ... - Monitor
A veteran lawman who lived in Rio Grande City and worked throughout Starr and Zapata counties, Piper retired from as Rio Grande City police chief in December. His death came a day after FBI agents filed a criminal complaint in U. S. magistrate court in McAllen, in which they said he admitted to stealing more than $44,000 in unearned overtime wages between 2009 and last year. “I am very, very, sorry for my actions. It is not only a stain on law enforcement but I am also hurting my family and embarrassing them,” Piper told the agents, according to the complaint filed Monday. A Starr County sheriff’s investigator found Piper about 9:45 a. m. Tuesday — 15 minutes after he’d been set to make his initial court appearance — dead at the wheel of his red Mercedes sedan outside his home in the 100 block of South Aguirre Avenue. Piper had told agents he did not work 70 percent of the overtime he claimed on his time sheet. The overtime money was funded under Operation Stonegarden, a federal program that gives money to local U. S. -Mexico police departments to pay officers’ overtime while working immigration-related cases. “I am very, very sorry for my actions. Typically, when federal prosecutors have reached an early plea agreement with a defendant in a case, they will charge them via criminal information, during which a defendant waives the right to a trial by jury. Source: www.themonitor.com
