A veteran Bexar County Deputy finds herself on the wrong side of the bars today, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Rita Alvarez, 38, is charged with acting as a debt collector for the Mexican Mafia, shaking down inmates for drug debts.
Sheriff Javier Salazar says Alvarez, who has been a jail guard since 2006, would take the cash and put it into a 'commissary account,' or jailhouse account, of an inmate with connections to the violent drug gang.
"The course of conduct by this deputy has been under surveillance by the Sheriff's department and SAPD for several months," Sheriff Javier Salazar said.
Alvarez is charged with the crime of 'illegal barter, expenditures, or investments.'
'"Actually collecting drug debts for one of our inmates, and making sure that money got to him here in the facility," Salazar said.
Salazar said he didn't know the relationship between the deputy and the Mexican Mafia member, or how much she was paid for her debt collection activities.
PHOTO: BEXAR COUNTY SHERIFF