Texas county GOP officials used forged document to cut off rival's access to bank: prosecutors

A pair of top-ranking officials in the Republican Party of Bandera County, Texas have been indicted for an alleged scheme involving document fraud, reported KSAT on Tuesday.

"Conrad Striegl, 73 and Cari Rene Leith, 62, were each charged with fraudulent securing of document execution between $2,500 and $30K, 198th Judicial District Court records obtained by KSAT show," reported Dillon Collier and Joshua Saunders. "The pair, which is accused of presenting a forged document to cut off the bank access of another GOP official, was booked into the Bandera County Jail Friday on the state jail felony charge."

Striegl is the county party chair, and Leith serves as the treasurer, according to the report.

"The criminal case, spearheaded by the Texas Attorney General’s Office, was launched last year after then-chairperson Lynn Haueter was locked out of accessing the group’s bank accounts," said the report. "Haueter told KSAT on Tuesday that she ran into issues while preparing payroll taxes for election workers. After contacting the bank, she was told she no longer had access to any of the group’s accounts. She described the money in the accounts as a mix of donations and state funding totaling around $13,000."

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According to the report, Haueter soon learned that the bank received a "conditions-of-censure" documents signed by five people, including Striegl and Leith, that blocked her from any access to the group's financial accounts, months before her term was set to expire. Investigators suspect that this document was fraudulent.

This comes amid a number of other criminal cases involving local Republican officials and candidates in Texas. Last year, a police officer backed by Trump for Congress was indicted on charges of impersonating a public servant. Meanwhile, a securities fraud indictment against state Attorney General Ken Paxton has been kicking around the court system for years with no clear progress toward a trial.