Prosecutor: Former cop held gun to man’s head claiming he had 750K fake ballots

A former Houston police captain was charged Tuesday with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after he allegedly ran a man off the road and pointed a gun at him.

Former officer Mark Aguirre was reportedly convinced that a local repairman was behind a massive imaginary election fraud scheme, according to a report from The Associated Press. 

Aguirre allegedly rammed his vehicle into the unnamed man’s truck, forcing him off the road, before holding him at gunpoint until police showed up and took Aguirre into custody.

He reportedly told investigators he believed the man was behind a massive ballot-harvesting scheme, and that they would find thousands of illegal ballots in the man’s truck; a search of the vehicle revealed only tools and various repair equipment.

A lieutenant with the Texas Attorney General’s Office added that the incident occurred after Aguirre demanded that state police intervene and stop the man’s truck, which they refused to do.

“The defendant stated [the driver] has approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand fraudulent mail ballots and is using Hispanic children to sign the ballots because the children’s fingerprints would not appear in any databases,” reads Aguirre’s arrest affidavit, according to the AP.

Aguirre, who has received more than a quarter of a million dollars from a local right-wing group run by activist Steven Hotze, has claimed innocence through an attorney.

The attorney argued that his client was undertaking a lawful investigation, though Aguirre is not a member of law enforcement and has no authority to carry out investigative procedures. 

“I think it’s a political prosecution. I really do,”Aguirre’s attorney Terry Yates told a local news outlet, according to the AP. “He was working and investigating voter fraud, and there was an accident. A member of the car got out and rushed at him and that’s where the confrontation took place. It’s very different from what you’re citing in the affidavit.”

Election officials around the country have cited death threats from supporters of President Trump in recent days as the president has refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, claiming the results were tainted by widespread voter fraud. However, there has been no substantial evidence that fraud on this scale has occurred. 

The election results were finalized by the Electoral College vote this week, solidifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win.

Pro-Trump attorneys in several states have launched legal efforts to overturn state election results since the election, with no success thus far.