The Robert Trevino Case

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.'

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