SAN ANTONIO – A former Frio County election judge says a lawsuit filed against her by several elected leaders charged in a state-led vote harvesting investigation is an attempt at “witness intimidation.”
Margie Gonzales, who spoke exclusively with KSAT Investigates, is being sued for $50 million after being accused of making false statements with the intent of malice.
Gonzales and another defendant who ran for office filed complaints with the Texas Attorney General’s office. Gonzales said she did not know the other defendant had made reports.
“This was grossly done,” Gonzales said, adding that she witnessed ballot tampering.
The complaints to the attorney general’s office led to the arrests of 15 people in the summer of 2025. Among those facing charges are a former candidate for San Antonio mayor, school board & city council members, and the Frio County judge.
KSAT asked Gonzales whether she had seen anyone encouraging voters to vote a certain way. She told KSAT she had.
Five of those facing charges banded together to file the February 2025 lawsuit against Gonzales:
- Frio County Judge Rochelle Lozano Camacho
- Pearsall City Council member Ramiro Trevino
- Pearsall City Council member Racheal Garza
- Pearsall Independent School District board member Roselle Adriann Ramirez
- Rosa Galvan Rodriguez, whom the 81st Judicial District Attorney said is an alleged vote harvester
“We believe they’re the victims of voter suppression, defamation, slander, and libel with a kind of conspiracy by the attorney general,” said the group’s attorney, Domingo Garcia. He said their criminal cases are still pending.
Gonzales called the lawsuit ridiculous.
“My immediate thought was basically witness intimidation, being that I am the main witness to the indictment that they received and the charges that were brought up against these individuals by the AG’s office,” Gonzales said.
“How do you respond to that?” asked KSAT reporter Daniela Ibarra.
“If you’re gonna make allegations, you better have proof of them,” said Garcia.
Court records accuse Gonzales and the other defendant of “providing hearsay and fabricated evidence” to an investigator for the attorney general’s office.
“That is incorrect. So everything that was done by me was videotaped and has audio, so that’s the information that the AG’s office has,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales, who said she is a witness in the group’s criminal case, believes the lawsuit was meant to intimidate her.
“That is definitely a way to scare me, or a tactic that they might have used to try to scare, but it’s not scaring me,” she said.
The records show Gonzales is also accused of writing “false and defamatory statements” about the group, which they say led to damaged reputations, loss of income, and “extreme psychological distress.”
During a court appearance last summer, a representative for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) said he believed the attorney general’s office was targeting them.
“They repeat the big every year right before an election to try to get Latinos and Latinos to not vote and to make it much more difficult for those campaigns and those volunteers to get citizens to go out there and vote,” said Garcia.
“I’m Latina, and I think that every election should be ran fair and square,” said Gonzales.
Gonzales’ co-defendant, Mary Moore, ran against one of the plaintiffs, Rochelle Lozano Camacho, in the Democratic primary for Frio County Judge. On Tuesday, Moore won the nomination.
KSAT reached out to Moore three times for comment for this story and did not hear back.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.