(CNN) A former Houston police captain was charged Tuesday with running a man off the road and pointing a gun to his head two weeks before the election as part of a baseless voter fraud conspiracy theory, the Harris County district attorney said in a statement.
Mark Anthony Aguirre, 63, was paid more than a quarter-million dollars by a Houston-based private citizens group investigating unsubstantiated 2020 election fraud claims, prosecutors said.
On October 16, Aguirre asked a lieutenant with the Texas Attorney General's Office to conduct a traffic stop to help with his investigation, according to a Houston police affidavit obtained by CNN.
When the idea was rejected, Aguirre said he would do it himself and "make a citizen's arrest," the affidavit says.
Aguirre told authorities he had conducted surveillance on the man driving the truck for four days, according to the district attorney's news release .
He said he suspected there were 750,000 fraudulent ballots inside the truck and that the man was "the mastermind of a giant (voter) fraud," the release states. »
