WASHINGTON — A two-time Latin Grammy winner and House Democratic candidate hoping to flip a GOP-held district in Texas has performed more than a dozen times with a registered sex offender who was sentenced to prison for indecent contact with an eight-year-old girl.
Democratic congressional hopeful Bobby Pulido played and recorded his breakout hit with accordionist Frankie Caballero in the 1990s prior to his conviction — but toured again with the bandmate decades later after Caballero’s four-year prison sentence for the second-degree felony with the girl in 2014.
Caballero appeared with the Tejano singer at concerts in Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Tucson, Arizona and in other states between 2018 and 2021, according to YouTube videos and social media reviewed by The Post.
He also still lists his employment as “accordion player for Bobby pulido” on Facebook and posted more than a dozen times over the same time period about shows with the singer in other Texas cities.
“Bobby was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history. Bobby extends his deepest sympathies and support to all of the victims involved,” said Pulido campaign manager Abel Prado in a statement.
Court records of the 2014 child sex crime aren’t public because the victim was a minor, though the charge, sentence imposed and sex offender registration status are available on a Texas Department of Public Safety webpage.
Hidalgo County jail records show Caballero was also booked in June 1992 for aggravated sexual assault of a child and hit with a $75,000 bond. The case disposition is unclear, and no court records are available online.
Ramon Rodriguez, a south Texas bass player, told The Post that he had performed with Caballero as recently as 2020 and that the child sex conviction became “a known fact in music circles” in the immediate years after.
“This really raises some concerns about Bobby’s judgment. You get to a certain point in music where they vet everybody around you,” Rodriguez said, adding that the Tejano scene is “a very tight-knit industry.”
A former prosecutor in Hidalgo County also said that there was “simply no version of this story where Bobby Pulido did not know the man he employed and befriended for decades is a career child predator,” since Caballero would have had a “probation officer, employer verifications” and missed work for court dates as well as prison time.
‘Just can’t stay out of trouble‘
Caballero has a long rap sheet of at least 13 charges beyond the child sex crimes — but that also didn’t stop Pulido from taking credit for bringing him into the band or speaking in glowing terms about the accordion afficionado’s work with him on the title song of his 1995 debut album “Desvelado.”
The singer told a crowd at an April 2020 concert in Arizona he was taken with Caballero’s accomplished playing when they first met, sharing that he thought to himself: “That guy’s a bad man! And so, I brought him over.”
At the time, Caballero already had guilty pleas and convictions stretching back to 1995 for theft, trespassing, driving while intoxicated, according to Hidalgo County court records.
State charges against Caballero for cocaine possession were dismissed in 2009 because he had also pleaded guilty two months before to a federal crime for transportation of an unlawful alien from Mexico into the US. A judge sentenced him to 27 months, per federal court filings.
On May 30, 2020, Caballero allegedly strangled a family member, Nancy Caballero, and was arrested for the third-degree felony — but released on a $2,000 bond, court records also show. He was charged a year later.
Caballero posted on Facebook a handful of times later in 2020 that he would be at shows with Pulido, sharing in a Dec. 23, 2020, that he was “performing with Bobby pulido” in Austin.
In April 2021, Pulido also shared a video on his YouTube channel performing a medley of his songs and sharing the stage with Caballero in Las Vegas at a live show.
More photos on Caballero’s Facebook show them playing together at a friend’s birthday party in May 2021.
The accordion icon was indicted for the May 2020 assault on Nancy Caballero by a state grand jury on July 2021, at which time he was also hit with charges for failing to report a change of address as a registered sex offender, another felony.
Caballero pleaded guilty in May 2024 to the assault and was sentenced to five years in prison. Additional charges for failing to register as a sex offender were dismissed as part of a plea agreement for the domestic violence case.
He was credited with 747 days of previous jail time, allowing him to be paroled out in January 2026.
Pulido seemed aware of Caballero’s many run-ins with the law, admitting in a March 2024 interview a little more than a year before launching his congressional run that it was a “shame” his bandmate “just can’t stay out of trouble.”
“Frankie Caballero has long struggled with addiction issues and Bobby Pulido has acknowledged and attempted to help him with that battle,” Prado added. “When Premier Management learned of Caballero’s criminal history in 2021 he was immediately fired and that relationship was severed.”
Social media posts suggest their public association ended around May 2021, two months before Caballero was indicted for physically assaulting his family member.
A source close to the campaign said that it was “industry standard” for Premier Management to “not conduct a background check for Caballero’s short-term performing engagement,” adding that Pulido is expected to “soon be making a charitable donation to support abuse victims in Texas.”
A campaign rep also pointed to Homero Esquivel as the accordion player that has spent the most time in Pulido’s band.
In a November 2025 interview even after launching his campaign, Pulido still showered Caballero with praise for recording the the “eternal” hit “Desvelado” with him 30 years before.
“It was supposed to be done with keyboard” played by Brando Mireles, but “Brando likes to party” and didn’t make it to the studio, so Caballero as a “prolific accordion player” subbed in with his own instrument, Pulido revealed to Houston Chronicle music critic Joey Guerra.
“And I said, ‘F–k Brando, we’re keeping the accordion,” Pulido said.
The ‘quinceañara’ candidate
The Texas Democrat is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz in Texas’ 15th Congressional District this November, which runs north from the border county of Hidalgo to the eastern side of San Antonio.
“This election isn’t about who you want performing at your niece’s quinceañera,” De La Cruz said in a video statement earlier this month after her Dem opponent won his primary race.
“It’s about who you trust with your family’s future. After years of neglect, South Texas finally has a seat at the table and we’re not going to jeopardize that.”
One of the only polls conducted in the race from a Democrat-aligned firm showed Pulido within striking distance of De La Cruz, 38% to 41%, with 21% of voters still undecided.
For his part, Pulido — who won the Latin Grammy for Best Tejano Album in 2022 and 2025 — has claimed the “quinceañara” jab as a badge of honor, posting photos of himself on Instagram performing at teenage girls’ birthday parties.
The GOP congresswoman had previously attacked Pulido for being a “scandal-plagued celebrity” whose social media posts have linked to “adult content” and who admitted to only living part-time in Texas.
The Post first revealed that the two-time Latin Grammy winner had also starred in a weird music video as a serial masturbator, covering his private parts with a red blanket before pleasing himself in front of a woman.
“I’ve been in the music business for 30 years and never had a scandal,” Pulido said in a March 22 video statement responding to the report on X, claiming the music video was “based on a real singer that was caught in a lewd act and made international headlines at the time.”
“I’m a singer, actor, songwriter — and I won’t apologize for my past artistic endeavors,” he added. Pulido also accused the “Republican attack machine” of being unable to “translate Spanish to English,” which “can’t” be done because “it doesn’t translate in humor.”
Caballero did not respond to a request for comment.
