A Latin Grammy Award winner running as a Democrat for Congress who claimed he had no knowledge of his pedophile bandmate’s criminal past was captured on video referring to him as a ‘bad man.’
Bobby Pulido, known for Tejano hits such as Desvelado, is vying to flip Texas‘s 15th congressional district, which runs just east of San Antonio down to the border with Mexico.
Pulido has been facing controversy since the New York Post revealed last week that he toured with a bandmate named Frankie Caballero, 62, who was sentenced to four years in prison for indecent contact with an eight-year-old girl in 2014.
Caballero was ordered by the court to be registered on the Texas Public Sex Offender Website for life following his conviction.
Pulido’s campaign manager, Abel Prado, previously told the Daily Mail: ‘Bobby was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history.’
But video of a 2018 performance in Arizona, after Caballero’s conviction and prison sentence, shows Pulido introducing Caballero on stage by saying: ‘When I was starting, I was like, “that guy’s a bad man,” and so I brought him over.’
Caballero was the accordionist in Pulido’s 1995 breakout hit Desvelado, which was recorded nearly 20 years before his child sex offense conviction.
But he was also previously charged with aggravated sexual assault against a child in 1992, according to Hidalgo County jail records. He was issued a $75,000 bond, but the outcome of the case was not listed in the records.
Pulido’s campaign manager told the Daily Mail in a statement: ‘Watch the full video and it’s clear what he meant – turning a comment about a musician being “bad” into something more is not serious.
‘These fake, exaggerated connect-the-dots stories are politically motivated attempts to discredit a candidate.
‘As stated before, Bobby had no knowledge of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that history.’
Pulido and Caballero performed together in at least six cities between 2018 and 2021 after the pedophile’s release from prison.
Caballero also has an extensive criminal history, which includes 13 charges ranging from cocaine possession to transportation of an unlawful alien from Mexico into the US and domestic violence.
The possession charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal in 2009 which saw him plead guilty to transportation of an alien. He was sentenced to 27 months in that case.
In 2020, Caballero was arrested for strangling a family member named Nancy Caballero and was released on a $2,000 bond.
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