Did Democrats’ Best Chance to Flip Texas, Bobby Pulido, Know He Brought a Child Sex Offender Into a School?

Bobby Pulido says he had no idea his longtime bandmate — a convicted child predator — was on Texas’ sex offender registry. The evidence tells a very different story.

Democrats have been banking on Bobby Pulido to flip Texas’ 15th Congressional District. The two-time Latin Grammy Award winner, Tejano superstar, and political outsider was supposed to be the candidate who finally brought South Texas back into the Democratic column. He had the name recognition, the charisma, and the crossover appeal.

What he also had, it turns out, was a convicted child sex offender as his star accordionist — a man he brought onto the stage of a middle school fundraiser, in front of children, less than a year after that man finished a four-year prison sentence for sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl.

And now the question tearing through Texas’ 15th District is deceptively simple: Did Bobby Pulido know?

What Actually Happened at Harwell Middle School

On May 24, 2018, Bobby Pulido headlined a benefit concert for Harwell Middle School in Edinburg, Texas. It was promoted as a fundraiser for the school. Children were welcome — and children were present.

Performing alongside Pulido that night, as his accordionist, was Frankie Caballero.

Caballero had been convicted in 2014 of indecent sexual contact with an 8-year-old girl in Hidalgo County, Texas — a second-degree felony under Texas law. He served four years in prison. He was released in 2017, placed on Texas’ sex offender registry, and required to register under state law.

Less than a year after walking out of prison, Caballero was back on a stage with Bobby Pulido. At a school event. With children in the audience.

“I Had No Idea” — The Defense That Doesn’t Hold Up

Pulido’s campaign has one answer for everything: he didn’t know.

“Bobby was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history,” campaign manager Abel Prado said in a statement. The campaign also claims Caballero was hired by Pulido’s management company without a background check — standard industry practice, they say.

But Axios, which broke the school event story this week, found that claim extremely difficult to square with years of Pulido’s own public statements.

Just days before the Harwell Middle School benefit concert, Pulido publicly credited Caballero with helping launch his career — saying he was the one who recruited Caballero to join his band in the first place. Pulido has described their relationship as spanning decades, called Caballero a close professional ally, and in a 2019 podcast interview revealed that he had personally bailed Caballero out of jail earlier in his career.

At a November 2018 concert in Tucson, Arizona — six months after the school fundraiser — Pulido joked onstage that Caballero had “worked at Penn State,” a widely understood reference to the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal that rocked that university. Immediately after, he called Caballero a “bad man” before praising his musical talents.

Pulido’s campaign never responded to Axios’ multiple requests for clarification on what that joke meant.

Then there’s a 2024 interview in which Pulido said it was a “shame” that Caballero “just can’t stay out of trouble” — years after the campaign now claims management first learned of the conviction.

Pulido listed himself as Caballero’s employer in court bonding documents in early 2021, while additional criminal charges against Caballero were pending. That same year, Caballero pleaded guilty to assaulting his own daughter by impeding her breathing.

The Tejano Music Community Isn’t Buying the “I Didn’t Know” Line Either

Multiple musicians familiar with the South Texas Tejano scene told reporters they find the ignorance defense implausible.

“The Tejano community is a very small, tight-knit community,” one musician who has worked with Pulido told Axios. “Bobby knows exactly who we got.” The musician described Pulido and Caballero as close friends and said Caballero’s criminal history is “a well-known fact” in music circles.

Bassist Ramon Rodriguez told the New York Post the situation raises serious questions about Pulido’s judgment. “You get to a certain point in music where they vet everybody around you,” he said.

A former Hidalgo County prosecutor was even more direct, telling reporters there is “simply no version of this story where Bobby Pulido did not know the man he employed and befriended for decades is a career child predator” — pointing specifically to employer verification requirements and the role of Caballero’s probation officer.

There is one more detail that makes the “I didn’t know” defense harder to sustain: in at least one instance earlier in Caballero’s criminal history, sexual assault charges against him were dismissed under the supervision of Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra — Bobby Pulido’s great-uncle.

What This Means for Texas’ 15th District

Texas’ 15th Congressional District has been on the national radar for months. Republicans won it by 18 points when Trump carried it, and incumbent Rep. Monica De La Cruz beat her last opponent by 14 points in 2024. But Democrats saw Pulido — with his fame, his South Texas roots, and his connection to Hispanic voters — as the rare candidate who might flip it.

A poll taken last fall by a Democratic group showed Pulido trailing De La Cruz by just 3 points.

De La Cruz is not letting the moment pass. “My heart goes out to the children who were sexually abused by a close friend and professional associate of Bobby Pulido,” she said in a statement. “Despite being caught on tape admitting he knew of this man’s criminality and praising him as recently as November, Mr. Pulido now falsely claims to have been unaware of his crimes. These are not South Texas values.”

Pulido’s campaign is fighting back, calling the scrutiny a politically motivated “nothing story” cooked up because “Monica De La Cruz herself admitted he is surging in this race.”

Key Questions Voters in TX-15 Are Now Asking

Did Pulido know Caballero was a registered sex offender before the 2018 school concert? The campaign says no. Public records, court documents, Pulido’s own on-tape statements, and multiple musicians who worked alongside both men suggest otherwise.

What did Pulido mean when he joked about Caballero and Penn State? The campaign has never answered this question. Pulido’s team did not respond to Axios’ multiple requests for comment on the remark.

Why did Pulido list himself as Caballero’s employer in 2021 court documents — three years after the school event? No explanation has been offered.

Is this disqualifying for a congressional candidate? South Texas voters will decide in November.

The Bottom Line

Bobby Pulido didn’t just share a stage with a convicted child sex offender. He brought that man — a registered offender who had been convicted of abusing an 8-year-old — into a school fundraiser, in front of children, less than a year after his release from prison. He then continued employing him, publicly praising him, and — by his campaign’s own account — didn’t sever ties until 2021, seven years later.

The “I didn’t know” defense requires voters to believe that a candidate who personally recruited Caballero, publicly credited him for his career, personally bailed him out of jail, and listed himself as his employer in court documents somehow never knew the most publicly documented fact about the man’s recent life: that he was a convicted child sex offender on the Texas registry.

Democrats chose Bobby Pulido as their best shot at flipping South Texas. The question now isn’t whether this story matters. It’s whether voters believe the story he’s telling about it.

Sources: Axios (June 22, 2026), Texas Tribune (April 2, 2026), New York Post, Fox News Digital, KSAT News