Scoop: Bobby Pulido headlined school benefit with registered sex offender (axios.com)

Democratic congressional candidate and musician Bobby Pulido performed onstage alongside a registered sex offender at a Texas middle school benefit concert in 2018, Axios has learned. Why it matters: Pulido, the Grammy award-winning Tejano singer running to oust Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz in Texas' 15th district, is facing media scrutiny over his ties to accordionist Frankie Caballero. Pulido has denied he had any knowledge of Caballero's status as a registered sex offender at the time of the 2018 school benefit, which occurred roughly a year after Caballero finished serving a four-year prison sentence for indecent sexual contact with an 8-year-old girl. A spokesperson for Pulido's campaign told the New York Post in April that Pulido was "never made aware" that Caballero was a registered sex offender. The Post first reported Pulido's association with Caballero. In response to Axios queries, a Pulido spokesperson described scrutiny of Pulido's association with Caballero as a politically motivated "nothing story." But Pulido has talked openly about his decades-long close professional relationship with Caballero, with whom he resumed touring with just months after Caballero's release from prison in mid-2017. Just days before the May 2018 middle school benefit, Pulido bragged that he was the one who recruited Caballero to join his band in the first place. Both before and after the concert, Pulido publicly described a close professional relationship with Caballero dating back to the 1990s and credited Caballero with helping to launch his career. The two appeared together at concerts and on television through at least 2021. In October 2021, Caballero was incarcerated for "impeding" the breathing of his daughter. What happened: On May 24, 2018, Pulido, Caballero and the rest of Pulido's band performed at an event to raise money for Harwell Middle School in Edinburg, Texas, according to promotional materials and a video reviewed by Axios. Children were welcome at the event, which was held at the Richard R Flores Stadium, several miles from the middle school grounds, according to the promotional materials. A video reviewed by Axios shows children were present in the audience. At the time of the performance , Caballero had already completed the four-year prison sentence stemming from his 2014 conviction and was listed on Texas' sex offender registry . Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District, where Harwell Middle School is located, declined to comment. Pulido said in a local television interview at the time that he agreed to participate in the benefit concert because of his personal commitment to education, adding that he had attended school in the Rio Grande Valley and understood the value of those sorts of fundraisers to public schools in the area. "Bobby Pulido is a public figure who has been an open book for over 30 years, and the only reason Republicans are digging up this nothing story is because Monica De La Cruz herself admitted he