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EDINBURG — A 40-year-old man accused of stealing 232 and 37 head of cattle from two different men had his bonds forfeited Monday after failing to appear in court for a second time.
Phillip Joseph Drake, of Edinburg, is charged with theft of cattle and theft of property valued between $30,000 and $150,000 in two cases, according to court documents.
Drake was scheduled to appear in court for an arraignment hearing, but failed to show.
He also failed to show at his initial arraignment on two indictments on Oct. 17, 2022 and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Prosecutor Gretchen Flader told Judge Joe Ramirez that she had been in communication with Drake’s attorney since last month when Drake also failed to appear before the court, but had not heard from them since.
Ramirez ordered Drake’s bonds to be forfeited.
Drake has a history of alleged cattle theft. He was arrested in 2019 in Starr County for similar allegations of stealing 11 head of cattle. This wasn’t Drake’s only run in with the law, though.
On Oct. 21, 2021, authorities confirmed that Drake was the man who reported being assaulted and tied to a chair at a property off of Highway 281 on East FM 490 the prior month.
Sheriff J.E. “Eddie” Guerra said the following day that the investigation into that assault had been closed due Drake declining to cooperate.
Drake was arrested on Oct. 15, 2021, after Salvador Garza III alleged that Drake stole 232 head of cattle from him. The two had met late 2020 and contrived a business plan where Garza would bankroll the purchase of a herd of cows while Drake would buy them, feed them and later sell them for a profit, according to documents.
An affidavit states that in November 2020, Garza gave Drake a cashier’s check for $22,550 to pay for around 41 head of cattle and the following month, Garza gave him $41,400 to pay for about 51 head of Hereford cattle.
A month later, Garza gave Drake another cashier’s check for $84,000 which was intended to pay for another 140 head of cattle, according to the affidavit.
It was in March 2021, when Garza began to get suspicious of Drake and the cattle enterprise. Garza began asking questions and when Drake started giving excuses, Garza demanded that Drake either hand him over the cows or the money.
Drake chose the latter and gave Garza four checks totaling more than the $147,950 that Garza had given Drake to purchase the cattle, but the checks were from closed accounts.
Special Ranger Joe Aguilar Jr. from the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, who investigated the cattle theft, previously said that neighbors near Drake’s property reported having not seen any of the cattle there for a while.
Aguilar described Drake as a “con artist,” due to similar investigations Drake’s been involved in.
According to another affidavit, Roy Ruiz, a Floresville rancher, hauled around 267 head of cattle to Drake’s ranch located north of Edinburg in order for Drake to graze and feed the herd on his property in fall of 2019.
That November, when Ruiz’s herd was due back, Drake began to give him excuses too.
“Ruiz gave him a lot of opportunities to get the cattle back,” Aguilar said at the time. “He was sending these 36-foot trailers down and when his foreman would go back up he’d show up with five- or 10-head.”
Ruiz demanded the rest of his herd and eventually told one of his driver’s to stay at Drake’s ranch until he had the last of his cattle.
That was the same day Drake reported being assaulted and tied to a chair.
The report of the assault drew a significant amount of attention from law enforcement to Drake’s ranch up until he stopped cooperating.
Aguilar stated that Drake used Ruiz’s herd of cattle as a pawn in alleged schemes to cheat other South Texas ranchers.
According to Aguilar, Drake would go into business with other prospective South Texas ranchers and would claim Ruiz’s cattle were cattle that had been purchased on their account, similar to Garza’s allegations against Drake.
“He had no permission to sell, no permission to do anything with them,” Aguilar said at the time. “He was actually stealing money from all these people that were thinking they had purchased all that cattle.”
