COFFEE CITY, Texas — Former Coffee City Mayor Frank Serrato has been charged with six counts of tampering with government records.
Serrato, 53, of Frankston, turned himself on charges of tampering with government records with intent to seal, defraud or cause harm Friday, according to jail records and Henderson County Sheriff Botie Hillhouse. These offenses are labeled as felony charges.
Records show his bonds totaled $900,000, but he bonded out of jail Friday afternoon. The listed date of offenses is May 24 of this year. He was indicted on the offenses on Dec. 14.
Our sister station KHOU 11 in Houston reports Serrato was also a former Coffee City reserve police officer.
This comes after the arrests of three former Coffee City police officers on various counts of tampering with records, including fired Police Chief JohnJay Portillo, Jerrod Sieck and Christopher Witzel.
Hillhouse also confirmed the sheriff's office is looking for former Coffee City police officer Lonnie Hicks for tampering charges. At this time, no one else is wanted in connection with this investigation.
These charges follow a KHOU 11 Investigation earlier this year that exposed questionable practices within the force. In September, the Coffee City Council fired Portillo and disbanded the entire department, and indictments against former officers followed.
A six-count indictment accuses Portillo of repeatedly lying on his Coffee City job application when he failed driving under the influence charge out of Florida and discipline he received at two previous police agencies in Harris County, according to reports from our sister station.
Portillo has also launched a bid to run for Harris County Precinct 3 Constable.
Sieck is indicted on five counts of tampering with a government record for accusations of making false entries and omitting items on his Coffee City job application. He allegedly omitted a three-day suspension he received at a previous job in Galena Park, a driving with suspended license charge out of Florida and a disorderly conduct citation in Galveston for urinating in public, according to reporting from KHOU.
Sieck is also accused of failing to disclose two incidents in which he was detained by police agencies in Galveston County for DWI investigations, according to the indictment.
Witzel is four felony counts of tampering with a government record. He is accused of not putting certain items on his Coffee City job application. This includes not disclosing prior discipline he received at the Hearne Police Department and a 2009 hit-and-run accident he was involved in, according to the indictment. He was also detained by the College Station Police Department in 1999 and 2001, the document alleges.
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, TCOLE, requires police agency job applicants to disclose any prior citations, detentions, arrests, convictions and disciplinary actions on their personal history statements. The form contains a written warning: “Be truthful, as there are criminal consequences for lying on a government document.”
TCOLE records state Sieck worked at Coffee City Police from Oct. 2022 to June 2023, while Witzel worked for the police department from October 2021 until September 2023.
Reporting from KHOU 11 contributed to this report.
