On December 27, 2021, a lawsuit was filed in the 455th District Court of Travis County. The lawsuit styled John David Osborne, JR. v. Valley International Airport, and the City of Harlingen goes into claims that Mr. Osborne was retaliated against for his attempt to investigate a crime.
Osborne claims he began cooperating in a state and federal investigation into corruption within Harlingen city officials, which includes members of the VIA board of directors.
Osborne states he was providing information about the investigation to Harlingen city officials, the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. He states this information consisted of reports of activity by the VIA “targets,” under investigation.
The lawsuit claims people subject to the investigation began asking questions as to why Osborne was providing detailed information to the City Commissioners, and VIA terminated Osborne.
The lawsuit provides information that Osborne was sending City Commissioner Richard Uribe information about an investigation Osborne was conducting and that Uribe asked Osborne to gather evidence of corruption. Osborne claims he was investigating a case because of Uribe’s “instruction.”
Osborne states he would create presentations on what he had found and copied the information on a pen drive for Uribe. Osborne claims the case he worked was taken over by the FBI from the Cameron County DA’s Office.
He also claims Uribe requested Mayor Boswell and Anita Boswell be investigated by Osborne. The lawsuit claims Uribe has business loans at First Community Bank and that is where Mrs. Boswell was employed as a “leader.” Osborne claims Uribe made reference that his business loans were suddenly under review by the bank because Uribe was “causing a shakeup in the city and giving the Mayor static publicly.”
Supposedly, “the FBI became interested in Anita Boswell and her bank after the City of Harlingen Auditor, Danny Coyle, submitted his resignation after reportedly being pressured to change his internal audit of the VIA to reflect a non-favorable review by Mayor Boswell.” Then, the lawsuit states, Uribe believed, Coyle was hired by First Community Bank to hush Coyle about the attempted influence on the VIA Audit.
In any case, the lawsuit claims that people started calling Osborne a mole, but the lawsuit also states Osborne was providing information to people while conducting his investigation. Osborne was terminated from his role as the Airport Police Chief and he was served two trespass warnings. One was for Uribe’’s home and the second was for his restaurant.
Interestingly enough, during Osborne’s time as a Harlingen Police Officer he didn’t take a citizens complaint related to being stalked; but he, somehow, gets served two trespass warnings and lost his job for investigating things as an Airport Police Chief for a Harlingen City Commissioner (per indications of the filed lawsuit).
Even more interesting may be the concept that Osborne “retired,” from the Harlingen Police Department to begin working with VIA under the same organizational structure.
Or, it could be our publishing on the belief Mayor Boswell was advertising business on city resources and somehow Uribe is banking at the advertised location.