Days after publicly boasting that he had recruited a convicted child sex offender into his band, Democratic congressional candidate Bobby Pulido took the stage with that same man at a benefit concert for a Texas middle school, with children in the audience.
The May 2018 performance at Richard R. Flores Stadium paired the Grammy-winning Tejano singer with accordionist Frankie Caballero, who had been released from prison just one year earlier after serving four years for indecent sexual contact with an eight-year-old girl. At the time of the concert, Caballero's name and photograph were listed on Texas' Public Sex Offender Website, available to anyone with an internet connection.
Pulido's campaign now says the candidate had no idea about Caballero's criminal record. But the timeline, the public registry, and Pulido's own recorded words on multiple podcasts raise hard questions about what he knew, when he knew it, and why he kept a man with a decades-long rap sheet on his payroll.
Caballero's troubles with the law did not begin with the 2014 conviction. The New York Post reported that his criminal history stretches back three decades and includes charges for DWI, cocaine possession, sexual assault, indecent sexual contact with a minor, and assault by strangulation.
In 1994, Caballero was charged with sexual assault. That charge was dismissed in 2000. The Post reported that Pulido's great-uncle, Rene Guerra, served as Hidalgo County District Attorney, and his name appears on court papers requesting dismissal of that 1994 charge.
Then came the conviction that should have ended any professional association. In May 2014, Caballero was sentenced to four years in prison, a second-degree felony, for indecent sexual contact with an eight-year-old girl. He served the full term, walked out in 2017, and landed right back in Bobby Pulido's band.
The candidate's recorded statements make the "I had no idea" defense difficult to sustain. In a 2019 podcast interview, Pulido spoke openly about Caballero and his history of incarceration:
"But get this, they locked him up. I remember when I started out, I went to get him out of jail."
It remains unclear which arrest Pulido was referring to. The source notes it "was not clear what timeframe Pulido had in mind or what alleged crime Caballero may have been jailed for." But the casual tone, "get this", suggests Pulido treated Caballero's run-ins with the law as an amusing anecdote, not a disqualifying red flag.
By 2024, Pulido was still talking about Caballero on a separate podcast, shaking his head but not exactly expressing horror:
"It's a shame, how good of an accordion player he is, and just can't stay out of trouble."
He added: "He's the best accordion player I've ever heard. Hands down." Talent, apparently, covered a multitude of sins.
The pattern is not unique among Democrats who have rallied behind scandal-plagued candidates rather than hold their own accountable.
Pulido's campaign manager, Abel Prado, offered a statement previously to the Daily Mail that tried to thread an impossible needle, expressing sympathy for victims while denying all knowledge:
"Bobby extends his deepest sympathies and support to all of the victims involved."
"Bobby was never made aware of Caballero's sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history."
The campaign also stated that "when Jimmy Montez management learned of Caballero's criminal history in 2021 he was immediately fired and that relationship was severed." That means Caballero continued performing with Pulido for roughly four years after his prison release, from 2017 through 2021, all while listed on the state's public sex offender registry.
Fox News reported that during those years, Pulido and Caballero toured together in Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Tucson. This was not a one-off appearance. It was a sustained professional relationship with a registered sex offender who had assaulted a child.
When Axios pressed the campaign, a spokesperson dismissed the coverage as a "nothing story" planted by Republicans, calling Pulido a "public figure who has been an open book for over 30 years." The Pulido campaign did not respond to the Daily Mail's requests for comment specifically about the school concert.
The 2021 firing did not mark the end of Caballero's legal troubles. Court documents reviewed by Axios show that in 2021, Caballero pleaded guilty to "impeding" his daughter's "normal breathing", a charge consistent with assault by strangulation. The campaign acknowledged Caballero had a struggle with "addiction" but offered no further detail.
Caballero did not respond to Axios. He reportedly played with Pulido as far back as the 1990s, meaning the professional relationship spanned roughly three decades and survived at least one felony sex crime conviction, multiple arrests, and a public sex offender listing.
The story was first reported by the New York Post. The Daily Mail subsequently reported on the middle school concert specifically, adding the detail that Pulido had boasted of recruiting Caballero just days before bringing him to perform in front of children.
Pulido's Republican opponent, Rep. Monica De La Cruz, did not hold back. As Breitbart reported, De La Cruz issued a statement tying Pulido directly to Caballero's record:
"For three decades, he brought a child predator into our neighborhoods with multiple convictions for sexually abusing children in Hidalgo County, including an eight-year-old girl. Despite being caught on tape admitting he knew of this man's criminality, Mr. Pulido now falsely claims to have been unaware of his crimes."
The race between Pulido and De La Cruz has been described as a crucial, neck-and-neck contest in Texas. Democrats need to flip four seats to seize the House majority, and this South Texas district is one of their top targets.
That political context matters. National Democrats have invested heavily in candidates across competitive districts, and the vetting failures that keep surfacing raise legitimate questions about whether the party prioritizes winning over basic due diligence. It is hardly the first time. A Democratic congressional candidate in Hawaii was recently charged with terrorist threats after allegedly pulling a gun on county workers.
The core issue is not complicated. A man running for Congress recruited a convicted child sex offender into his band, performed with him at a school event attended by children, and kept him on the road for years, all while that man's name sat on a publicly searchable state registry.
Pulido's campaign says he didn't know. But Pulido himself, on tape, talked about getting Caballero out of jail. He talked about Caballero not being able to "stay out of trouble." He acknowledged, at minimum, that Caballero had a pattern of criminal behavior. And he kept hiring him anyway.
The Democratic Party machine has shown a consistent willingness to look the other way when its preferred candidates carry baggage. But there is a difference between political baggage and bringing a registered sex offender to play music for middle schoolers.
A former Hidalgo County prosecutor, quoted by Breitbart, called Caballero's personal recognizance bond in an earlier felony rape case "outrageous" and said it "only could have happened with the blessing of the DA's office." That DA, as noted, was Pulido's great-uncle.
Voters in South Texas deserve to know whether their would-be congressman exercised the most basic judgment when it came to protecting children. So far, the answer from Pulido's camp has been sympathy for victims, denial of knowledge, and an insistence that the whole thing is a Republican plant.
That is not an answer. It is a press release.
The facts are not in dispute. Caballero's conviction is a matter of public record. The sex offender registry is free and searchable. The podcast interviews are on the internet for anyone to hear. The middle school concert happened. Children were there.
What remains in dispute is only whether Bobby Pulido knew, and on that question, his own recorded words do more damage than any Republican opposition researcher ever could.
When a man tells you his bandmate "just can't stay out of trouble" and you still put that bandmate on a stage in front of somebody else's kids, the problem isn't what you didn't know. It's what you chose not to care about.