JUDGE BARRAZA ON TRIAL: TAPED CONVERSATIONS FORCED, DEFENSE SAYS

EL PASO -- Jurors in state judge Manuel Barraza's trial on Wednesday
heard five tape recordings that prosecutors say prove he was seeking
sex from women in exchange for judicial favors.

But during cross-examination, the defense pointed out that FBI agents
asked a witness to call Barraza, record him and force him to talk about sex.

Prosecutors opened their case with an El Paso County sheriff's
detective, Benjamin Perales. He said an informant told him that
Barraza was "collaborating" with a woman to help her in a drug case
in return for sexual favors.

That was in December 2008, a few weeks before Barraza was sworn in as
the judge of the Criminal District Court No. 1, a drug court.

The rest of Wednesday was spent on the five recordings and one female
witness, Francisca Piedra, who is on all of the tapes. The first two
phone calls, to her from an inmate, prompted the sheriff to begin
investigating Barraza. Piedra's husband is a former FBI informant,
who now works as an informant for the sheriff.

Piedra, 42, testified that she told her husband about Barraza's
alleged scheme after her neighbor and friend, Diana Rivas Valencia,
called her from the jail and asked her to help line up some women who
could have sex with Barraza. In exchange, Barraza, 54, was to help
Rivas Valencia fight her drug charge. How he would do this was never specified.

"I told my husband about what (Diana) said, and he told the sheriff's
detective he worked with," Piedra said.

Rivas Valencia was arrested in September 2008 and charged with
possessing 2 kilos of cocaine. While in jail, she called Piedra several times.

All of their conversations were recorded, standard practice for calls
placed by jail inmates. In a Dec. 4 phone call, Rivas Valencia asked
Piedra to call her sister to find out whether Barraza was going to be
able to help her. In that first conversation, the sister told Piedra
and Rivas Valencia that Barraza said he would go talk to her in the jail.

At some time before Dec. 11, Barraza went to talk to Rivas Valencia
at the jail, Piedra said.

"He said he wanted a buffet" of women in exchange for helping her,
according to a taped call between Piedra and Rivas Valencia.

Under cross-examination by lead defense attorney Mervyn Mosbacker,
Piedra said FBI agents contacted her in January 2009 and asked
whether she would help them build a case against Barraza. She agreed.

During the next two weeks, she called Barraza three times and taped
the conversations while agents were at her side.

In one recording, Barraza told Piedra not to talk about women, sex
and Rivas Valencia's case on the telephone. Barraza, by this time the
judge of the drug court, spent most of his time talking about
defending Rivas Valencia and building her defense.

On cross, Piedra admitted that from the tapes and from her knowledge
of the calls, she could not conclude whether Barraza was going to
help Rivas Valencia. She also said she did not know whether any deal
was made between Barraza and Rivas Valencia.

"In fact, no one knew what he was going to be able to do, or whether
he would do it," Mosbacker said of Barraza's alleged role in helping
Rivas Valencia.

"Yes," Piedra answered.

FBI agents arrested Barraza in April, after he had been on the bench
just three months.

Testimony resumes today before U.S. District Court Judge Frank Montalvo.