Bobby Pulido, the Latin American songwriter now running for Congress as a Democrat in Texas, said on camera in 2019 that he personally went to get a former bandmate out of jail, a bandmate whose criminal history includes a conviction for indecency with a child, a sexual assault charge, cocaine possession, and a grand jury indictment for strangling a family member.
The bandmate, Frankie Callabero, played accordion on Pulido's 1995 breakthrough hit "Desvelado." He is now a registered sex offender. And Pulido, as the Daily Caller reported, kept touring with him for years, including after Callabero's 2014 conviction for sexual contact with an eight-year-old girl.
Pulido is the Democratic nominee challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz in November. His campaign did not respond to the Daily Caller's request for comment. The question voters in that Texas district now face is straightforward: What kind of judgment does this man bring to the table?
In a 2019 interview translated by the New York Post, Pulido praised Callabero's musical talent and then volunteered a detail no campaign consultant would approve. Pulido told the interviewer:
"He can do anything with the accordion. [...] But get this, they locked him up."
He followed that with a more specific claim:
"I remember when I started out, I went to get him out of jail."
Pulido did not say which of Callabero's many arrests he was referring to. That ambiguity does him no favors, given the length and severity of the rap sheet involved.
Callabero's history with the law stretches back to at least 1994, when he faced a sexual assault charge. Court documents referenced by the New York Post show he was released on a personal recognizance bond after being held only ten days. Pulido's breakthrough album came out just months later, with Callabero on accordion.
That 1994 sexual assault charge was eventually dismissed by Hidalgo County prosecutors in 2000. The New York Post reported that the name on the court papers requesting dismissal belonged to Rene Guerra, Pulido's great-uncle and the Hidalgo County district attorney from 1982 to 2014.
Guerra told the New York Post he could not recall the details of the case but acknowledged that either he or his first assistant prosecutor would have had to approve the dismissal. A former Hidalgo County prosecutor told the Post that the original release bond for an assault crime "only could have happened with the blessing of the DA's office."
That family connection raises its own set of questions, ones that remain unanswered.
Between 1999 and 2000, Callabero posted bail several times after additional arrests. His charges over the years include possession of cocaine and driving while intoxicated, in addition to the sexual assault and later offenses. In 2014, he was convicted of indecency with a child by contact involving an eight-year-old girl. The conviction earned him four years in jail and permanent status as a registered sex offender, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety rap sheet.
Then, in 2020, Callabero was charged with assault of a family member by strangulation. A grand jury later indicted him.
Pulido's campaign manager, Abel Prado, has attempted to contain the fallout. Prado told Fox News Digital in April that Pulido had no knowledge of Callabero's sex offender registration. His statement was categorical:
"Bobby was never made aware of Caballero's sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history. Bobby extends his deepest sympathies and support to all of the victims involved."
Prado also stated flatly that Pulido did not post Callabero's bail. He said Pulido's comments in the 2019 interview were meant to describe a professional relationship, not a literal act of posting bond. And he said that when Jimmy Montez Management, the outfit handling Pulido's career, learned of Callabero's criminal history in 2021, "he was immediately fired, and that relationship was severed."
But the timeline undercuts the neatness of that defense. The 2019 video, in which Pulido spoke warmly about going to get Callabero out of jail, came five years after Callabero's conviction for sexual contact with a minor. Pulido continued touring with Callabero from 2018 to 2021. And Prado himself acknowledged that Pulido knew about Callabero's drug problems, even if he claims ignorance about the sex offense.
The question isn't whether Pulido personally walked into a jail with a check. It's whether a man running for Congress exercised basic judgment about the people he chose to stand beside on stage, year after year, arrest after arrest, conviction after conviction.
This is not the first time Pulido's personal history has drawn scrutiny during the campaign. The Daily Caller previously reported that Pulido's social media history includes several posts containing explicit images and links to pornography sites. The outlet also reported on a 2010 music video that showed Pulido engaging in sexually explicit behavior on what appeared to be a private jet.
None of this is illegal. But for a candidate asking voters to trust him with a seat in Congress, the accumulation of these revelations paints a picture of a man whose judgment has been consistently poor, and whose campaign's reflexive answer is that he simply didn't know. The pattern of Democratic candidates carrying damaging personal baggage into competitive races is becoming hard to ignore.
Pulido will face De La Cruz, the Republican incumbent, in the November general election. Texas voters in that district will decide whether the man who boasted about springing a career criminal from jail, a man later convicted of molesting a child, deserves a promotion to the U.S. House of Representatives.
The role of Rene Guerra in dismissing Callabero's 1994 sexual assault charge adds another layer. Guerra served as Hidalgo County's top prosecutor for more than three decades. He is Pulido's great-uncle. His name sits on the paperwork that made a sexual assault case disappear. He says he can't remember the details.
That kind of convenient amnesia may play in a courthouse hallway. It shouldn't play on the campaign trail. And it fits a broader pattern of Democratic-linked figures facing serious criminal questions that their campaigns struggle to explain away.
Pulido's campaign has not addressed the Guerra connection in any public statement included in reporting to date. The silence is its own kind of answer.
There are still open questions. Which arrest was Pulido referring to in the 2019 video? Did he know about the 1994 sexual assault charge when he said he went to get Callabero out? Did he know about the 2014 conviction when he kept touring with Callabero for three more years? Did he ever ask?
Pulido's campaign has offered denials but no detailed accounting. In a political environment where Democratic House candidates in Texas already face questions about their associations and conduct, the burden on Pulido to explain himself grows heavier with each new report.
Voters don't need a candidate who claims he didn't know what was happening right next to him on stage. They need a representative who pays attention, and who doesn't brag about the wrong things on camera.
Conservative critics have long argued that the Democratic Party's approach to criminal justice, from controversial conduct by House Democrats to lenient prosecution policies in major cities, reflects a deeper problem with accountability. Pulido's story is a small-bore version of the same impulse: loyalty to the wrong people, excuses after the fact, and an expectation that voters won't look too closely.
When a man running for Congress tells a camera he helped a future child sex offender walk out of a jail cell, and then asks the public to trust his judgment, voters are entitled to say no.
