Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez (Alice, Texas, pop. 19,000) and her twin sister were indicted in January for hiding evidence in a dognapping case. Saenz-Lopez had agreed to baby-sit a shih tzu but, alarmed by the dog’s sickliness, she kept it and lied to the owners that it had died. When it was spotted at a local grooming service, Saenz-Lopez and her sister allegedly began a cover-up that included the mayor’s once pretending to be her sister. The mayor told her lawyer that if not for her husband, she would go to jail “for the rest of (my) life” rather than give the dog back. Most recently, Saenz-Lopez reported that the dog had run away, but many of her constituents are skeptical.
This article appears in Feb 6-12, 2008.