FFA sponsor accused of theft lost fundraising privileges but kept Valley View teaching job

A Mission resident accused of stealing over $85,000 from an FFA program is back teaching in his Valley View ISD classroom, though he’s no longer allowed to participate in extracurricular or fundraising activities.

 

 

Police arrested Marcos “Marc” Villarreal, 33, on October 7 after an investigation conducted by the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association found he’d allegedly embezzled $85,025.14 from the Citrus Valley District FFA and used that money for things like bar tabs and online purchases over the course of more than two years.

 

Villarreal was charged with theft of property worth between $30,000 and $150,000, a third-degree felony.

 

Villarreal was formerly the president of Citrus Valley, but he resigned in May.

 

The organization contacted police in June after it noticed discrepancies like unpaid accounts and uncashed checks, according to a criminal complaint.

 

The Citrus Valley presidency wasn’t the only one Villarreal resigned from in May.

 

He also resigned as an agricultural science teacher at Mission High School, a position he’d held for a decade.

 

Mission CISD said it was unaware of criminal allegations regarding Citrus Valley at the time of Villarreal’s arrest.

 

Villarreal didn’t stay out of work long.

 

 

In July, Villarreal successfully applied for a welding teacher position at Valley View ISD.

 

Police told Valley View about Villarreal’s arrest two days after it happened in October, according to internal correspondence from the district.

 

A week after the arrest, Valley View placed Villarreal on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

 

Villarreal’s personnel file, obtained through an open records request, doesn’t detail the findings of that investigation, but it does show that the district let him start working again this month.

 

“I would like to welcome you back to your regular work schedule,” Human Resources Director Aaron Larraga wrote Villarreal on Nov. 12. “Please be informed that the District is bringing you back to the teaching position with the understanding that you focus solely on your teaching responsibilities and classroom duties. Until the current legal matters are resolved, you will not be participating in any extracurricular or fundraising activities.”

 

Villarreal’s arrest in October wasn’t the first time he’d been in trouble with the law.

 

In 2018 the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office arrested Villarreal on a theft charge.

 

According to a criminal complaint, Villarreal arranged to buy a heifer from an Edinburg man for $4,500 in 2016.

 

The complaint says the next year Villarreal cut a check for the heifer but it bounced; bank records indicated his account was already overdrawn more than $3,000 about that time, and despite a new payment plan being worked up, Villarreal didn’t come up with the money that year and stopped communicating with the heifer’s seller.

 

 

Villarreal was ordered released the same day he was arrested in 2018 and court records don’t indicate that he was ever prosecuted.

 

A personnel file from Mission CISD doesn’t show that the district became aware of that arrest.

 

Records from the Texas Education Agency indicate Villarreal’s teaching certificate is currently under review.