In Las Cruces, New Mexico,
KVIA-TV Channel 7 reports:
- Former El Paso County Judge Anthony Cobos is expected to plead "no contest" to fraud charges stemming from the sale of property to a Chaparral couple.
According to a complaint affidavit, Cobos sold the couple property that belonged to his deceased stepmother.
The couple made monthly mortgage payments totaling $20,000 or more to Cobos, who allegedly stopped paying his mortgage on the property. It wasn't until the couple got a foreclosure notice on the home that they suspected they were possible victims of fraud.
Cobos, who is already serving a four-year federal prison sentence after admitting he accepted a bribe when he was county judge, originally pleaded not guilty to these new fraud charges.
According to a spokesperson with Judge Marci Beyer's office, Cobos will plead no contest to a second-degree felony count of fraud over $20,000 with a possible maximum sentence of nine years in state prison.
Cobos was in district court this morning for a pretrial status conference. A no contest plea is legally the same as a guilty plea, only it can't be used as evidence against him in a civil trial.
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