Convicted Texas Mayor Gets Indicted Again

A south Texas town mayor already convicted of sexual crimes against children has been arrested and charged with three additional felonies involving kids yet continues to hold his public office.

The mayor of Poteet, a town of about 3,500 residents located 30 miles south of San Antonio, is actually a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty last year to indecency counts for exposing himself to two girls and touching one of them inappropriately.

Yet he continued to serve and was never forced to resign. This week the disgraced lawmaker (Lino Donato) was indicted by an Atascosa County Grand Jury for aggravated sexual assault, indecency with a child by contact and attempted indecency with a child by contact. All three are felonies.

Donato was arrested and is currently in the Atascosa County jail on a $200,000 bond. The terms of his probation in the first case actually prevent him from attending City Council meetings because state law prohibits registered sex offenders from assembling at Poteet’s City Hall. No word on what he does during the town meetings that he is supposed to run.

The child-molesting mayor’s term expires in May 2009 and he has vowed not to resign before that. There must be some state entity—the governor, for instance—that has the authority to remove the deplorable politician. A recent example of a governor working to remove a criminally charged mayor took place in Detroit, where the mayor actually resigned before getting booted.