Bobby Pulido, the Latin Grammy-winning Tejano singer now running as a Democrat for Texas' 15th Congressional District, was caught on tape boasting about helping a longtime bandmate get out of jail, a man who was later convicted and imprisoned for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl.
The resurfaced audio, drawn from a 2019 YouTube interview with comedian Jose Luis Zagar, shows Pulido describing how he personally went to get accordionist Frankie Caballero "out of jail" early in his career. His campaign now insists those remarks were only meant to convey that Pulido was offering Caballero a performing opportunity, not that he posted bail. But the candidate's own words, and Caballero's extensive criminal record, have turned this South Texas congressional race into a test of whether voters will accept that explanation.
The New York Post reported this week that court records show Caballero posted bail following multiple arrests between 1990 and 2000, was sentenced to four years in prison in May 2014 for indecent sexual contact with a minor, and continued touring with Pulido after his release. The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal have all cited the Post's earlier reporting on the matter.
Caballero's rap sheet is not a single lapse. Over a three-decade period in Hidalgo County, he faced charges for driving while intoxicated, cocaine possession, a 1994 sex assault, indecent sexual contact with a minor, and assault on a family member by strangulation.
The strangulation charge alone resulted in a five-year prison sentence. He was credited with 747 days of previous jail time, allowing him to be paroled out in January 2026.
Cocaine possession charges were dismissed in 2009 as part of a plea agreement tied to a federal charge for transporting an illegal immigrant from Mexico into the United States. A judge sentenced him to 27 months on the federal charge. A DWI conviction earned him a 30-day sentence and a $350 fine.
The 1994 sex assault case carries its own troubling details. A July 18, 1994, court filing shows Caballero was released from jail without having to post any bail, on a personal recognizance bond requiring him to pay $75,000 only if he failed to appear or violated bond conditions. He was held for just ten days, from July 8 to July 18, before walking free. When released, the bond record listed his employment as a musician playing with Arturo Montes.
A former Hidalgo County prosecutor told the Post that the personal recognizance bond in a felony rape case was "outrageous" and "only could have happened with the blessing of the DA's office."
Pulido's campaign has tried to wave away the controversy. A spokesperson acknowledged that the accordion player had a drug problem but denied any knowledge of Caballero being listed on the Sex Offender Registration list. The campaign dismissed the surfacing of the audio as a "desperate smear."
That framing asks voters to accept a lot. Pulido's own words on tape describe getting Caballero out of jail. Court records confirm multiple arrests and a felony sex assault conviction. And Caballero continued touring with Pulido after serving time for sexually assaulting a child. The campaign's position is that none of this raised any flags.
This is not the first time Pulido's judgment has come under fire in this race. When he announced his candidacy in December, as Breitbart Texas reported at the time, his online footprint immediately became a liability.
Fox News Politics documented a series of social media posts from Pulido's accounts that raised concerns about his values among South Texas families.
In 2013, Pulido told viewers to visit a pornographic website if bored and reposted links to porn sites featuring the music of fellow musicians, asking them if they were receiving royalties for being featured. That same year, he posted a link to another adult site with a caption referencing "homemade porn while sleep-deprived."
In 2014, Pulido posted on Twitter in Spanish: "It's impossible to have Twitter and not watch porn." That post was later removed.
In 2015, he posted another link to a pornographic site but later deleted it, claiming his account had been hacked. The hacking defense covered one post. It did not explain the pattern.
Pulido is challenging Republican Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz, who is seeking re-election in the South Texas border-region district. The 15th District stretches across a region where law enforcement, border security, and the safety of children and families are not abstract policy debates, they are daily realities.
The mounting scrutiny from national outlets, the Post, the Times, The New Yorker, the Journal, suggests this story is not going away. Each new report adds detail. Each detail makes the campaign's "desperate smear" defense harder to sustain.
Consider the sequence. Pulido bragged on tape about getting Caballero out of jail. Caballero's criminal history includes a felony sex assault against an eight-year-old. Caballero continued to perform alongside Pulido after serving time for that offense. And Pulido's campaign says it had no idea Caballero was a registered sex offender.
Either the campaign never bothered to check the background of a man with a decades-long criminal record who stood on stage next to their candidate, or it knew and hoped no one would notice. Neither answer inspires confidence.
Key facts are still unresolved. Was Pulido directly involved in posting bail for Caballero, or was his on-tape boasting an exaggeration? When exactly did Pulido learn about the sex assault conviction? Did anyone in the campaign conduct even a basic background check on Caballero before he continued touring with the candidate? And why did the Hidalgo County DA's office approve a personal recognizance bond in a felony child sex assault case in 1994?
These are not gotcha questions. They are the kinds of questions any voter in the 15th District deserves to have answered before casting a ballot.
Voters in South Texas can judge a man's record, his associations, and his explanations for themselves. What they should not have to accept is a candidate who treats legitimate questions about a convicted child sex offender in his inner circle as nothing more than campaign noise.