The Ellis County Press: The Robert Trevino Case

The Robert Trevino Case
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Editor on 12/11/2003 00:00:00


_Waxahachie man goes from Vietnam War hero to rapist_
JOEY DAUBEN
The Ellis County Press
WAXAHACHIE - Fred Shannon is back.
Shannon, this newspaper's former investigative journalist and senior columnist,
has spent the past several months reading and re-reading trial testimony and
conducting interviews with family members of Robert Trevino, a highly-decorated
Vietnam War hero was sentenced to prison in 1995 on 24 counts of sexual assault.
The case, according to several editorials in recent weeks (with Part 3 this
week), documents the deliberate attempt to pin the charges on Trevino from a
wayward police investigator, Waxahachie City Manager Bob Sokoll, who threatened
Trevino that 'someone will get rid of you', and District Judge Gene Knize, as
well as County/District Attorney Joe Grubbs.
'This all started with Tulia,' Shannon said. 'They had a rogue cop, a conspiracy
to put the [blacks] in jail…it's the same as [the Trevino case].'
Since the trial, Trevino's family has sought a pardon from Gov. Rick Perry,
which he has denied, but a committee to study wrongful imprisonments of war
veterans was created by Houston Sen. Rodney Ellis.
The case will be brought before the public in a series of editorials, and then,
this reporter will investigate and come out with actual news articles for
follow-ups.
'This resembles Tulia so much and how they violated everyone's civil rights,'
Shannon said. 'It's up to us to make sure this doesn't happen again.'