Taral V. Patel, a political candidate in Fort Bend County, who earned notoriety for allegations of creating several fake Facebook accounts, was arrested on a felony charge on June 12, but his arraignment date set for Aug. 26, has now been reset.
Patel is expected to be indicted before Oct. 1 and maybe even earlier, if the investigators complete the pending interviews with witnesses.
The investigation is approaching nearly a year now, but its scope is huge and unprecedented. At least seven known fake Facebook accounts spreading over a period of three years and at least 13 email accounts associated with these Facebook accounts, one dating back to 2012, have to be delved into. Investigators have been serving numerous subpoenas and search warrants on Meta, Facebook’s parent company, Google, the email hosting company, and cell phone service providers. And they have been providing voluminous data to the investigators.
Besides several laptop computers, flash drives and cell phones have to be forensically examined.
The first major online impersonation event that was cracked, leading to Patel’s arrest, was the revelation that the mysterious persona of Antonio Scalywag, whose social media comments were racist and provocative, was none other than Patel.
Patel used the persona of a Needville resident, Patrick Ernst, without his consent to create a Facebook page under the name “Antonio Scalywag” with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten any person, by posting and sending messages in the name of “Antonio Scalywag” through Facebook and other electronic mail programs or message board, from Oct. 20, 2022 through May 4, 2024.
The associated email with this Facebook account was mountaingotzrule@gmail.com.A grand jury subpoena to Google on April 19, 2024, sought to identify all emails that used the phone number, belonging to Patel. On May 20, 2024, Google responded to the subpoena.
The same recovery phone number was also for the following email accounts: taral.fbc@gmail.com, taralvpatel@gmail.com, moutaingoatzrule@gmail.com, and info@kpgeorge.com.
On May 14, 2024, Google sent the records in response to the muntaingoatzrule@gmail.com search warrant. The device associated with mountaingoatzrule@gmail.com was a Pixel 6 Pro mobile phone device. In addition to mountajngoatzrulelcigmail.com, the Pixel 6 Pro mobile phone device was associated with several other email accounts, including but not limited to: taralvpatel@gmail.com, electkpgeorge@gmail.com, info@kpgeorge.com, taral.fbc@gmail.com, tpatel@intutivegc.com, kpgeorge@kpgeorge.com, info @taralpateltx.com.
Taral Patel worked as Chief of Staff for K.P. George, County Judge for Fort Bend County, at or near the time the Google records were created. Patel continued his online activity while he was in Washington D.C. working in the Biden Administration.
Another search warrant to Facebook revealed that Taral Patel created a duplicate Facebook page using the profile picture of Fort Bend County District Judge Surendran K. Pattel.
At the time of Patel’s arrest on June 12, 2024, his Google cell phone was seized and a search of the phone records showed a Facebook account listed for “Surendran Pattel” that was associated with the email Taral@movetexas.org
Judge Pattel identified the photo on the fake profile as a photo of him and the same photo Judge Pattel uses on his personal Facebook profile, which he identified as Surendran K. Pattel.
Judge Pattel told the investigator that he did not create the profile “Surendran Pattel” and he did not authorize anyone else to create it on his behalf. Judge Pattel stated that the Facebook profile “Surendran Pattel” was created using his name and displaying his photo without his consent.
The email Taravpatel@gmail.com was one of the associated users of the Pixel 6 Pro device seized from Patel. The Starry IP address in Arlington, VA registered to Taral Patel was used to access both the “Antonio Scalywag” Facebook account, and the email accounts: mountaingoatzrule@gmail.com and paulrosenstein73@gmail.com.
Patel has created a fake email account under the name Paulrosenstein73@gmail.com , with the imaginary name, claiming to be a former employee of the Fort Bend County Engineering Department.
On September 18, 2023, Patel unlawfully committed the criminal offense of Misrepresentation of Identity, a Class A misdemeanor offense, as described in Section 255.005 of the Texas Election Code, with intent to injure a candidate or influence the result of an election and Patel, did misrepresent his identity in political advertising or a campaign communication.
On June 27, 2024, in response to a subpoena directed to the Fort Bend County Information and Technology Department, investigators received copies of records from several e-mail accounts which included kpgeorge@.kpgeorge.com; kp.george@fortbendcountytx.gov and taral.patel@fortbendcountytx.gov kept with the Fort Bend County IT Department.
An email was sent on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 11:42pm originating from e-mail address jamesbanks.texas@gmail.com sent to both kpgeorge@fortbendcountytx.gov and kpgeorge@kpgeorge.com with subject line “Constituent Services for Fort Bend County.”
The email jamesbank.texas@gmail.com was identified in the preliminary device report as one of the accounts associated with the Google Pixel 6 Pro cell phone seized from Tara Patel at the time of his arrest.
While County Judge KP George’s emails are clearly implicated in Taral Patel’s criminal investigation, George’s involvement, if any, has not been disclosed yet.
On May 20, 2024, Google responded to a subpoena and revealed that the recovery phone of Patel was linked to several emails: taral.fbc@gmail.com, taralvpatel@gmail.com,mountaingoatzrule@gmail.com and info@kpgeorge.com.
Patel impersonated a Realtor from Pennsylvania on Facebook to fabricate a racially offensive comment and posed as a Fort Bend County couple while seeking “information” on Commissioner Andy Meyers and his staff by filing an Open Records Request with the county.
Patel issued a press release in September 2023, claiming he was a victim of racial slurs and posted a collage of social media posts. One of the posts cited by Patel was from a Jane Donnie, which read: “We don’t need more sand negroid subhumans who smell like curry and filth in our country. Go back to Bombay. You are not and NEVER will be a True American.”
But the catch here is that Patel himself is accused of creating a fake Facebook account under the name Jane Donnie and copied the Facebook profile picture of a Realtor, Gregg White, who lives in Jamison, Pennsylvania.
On June 20, 2024, Gregg White confirmed that the user profile picture in the “Jane Donnie” post was a picture of himself. Gregg White read the contents of the post and also confirmed this was not his Facebook account, and that he did not post this statement, nor did he give permission to anyone to use his photograph on any Facebook account, nor would he give anyone permission to use his photo on a Facebook post of this nature.
The Google subscriber records for theonlydangerdog@gmail.com showed that the account was created on 2008-11-05, associated with Taral Patel’s Pixel 6 Pro phone device, and this email was linked to the “Jane Donnie” Facebook page.
A warrant has also been served on Google LLC for all the data with the Google Account for theonlydangerdog@gmail.com for the dates between and including November 5, 2008 through June 21, 2024.
Meta Platforms, Inc. has received a search warrant for records of Facebook account holder Jennifer Tremaine (Facebook Account Identifier rubinaghosh4@gmail.com) for the time period of August 28, 2023 to April1, 2024.
The Google email address of rubinaghosh4@gmail.com is listed as a user account on the phone device seized from Patel. A subpoena was sent to Meta for subscriber information for any account associated with the email rubinaghosh4@gmail.com and it was linked to the Facebook name Jennifer Tremaine, with a creation date of August 29, 2023 and a Closure date of Feb. 26, 2024 . The IP address 52.129.6.150 in the records linked to logins of the Facebook account Jennifer Termain was registered to Telfair Lofts, Taral Patel’s residence.
Another search warrant issued to Google seeks all data associated with the Google user accounts bearing the Email address meltonese93@gmail.com for the dates between September 15, 2022 through May 23, 2024.
The google email address of meltonese93@gmail.com is listed as a user account on Taral Patel’s phone.
Fort Bend County Information Technology provided county emails sent to and received from meltonese93@gmail.com. The records provided by Fort Bend County Information Technology had an email sent by meltonese93@gmail.com to publicinformation@fortbendcountytx.gov on April 19, 2024 with the subject line “Richard Melton Open Records Request.” The sender identified himself as Richard Melton with an address in the zip code 77494. The address belonged to Robin and Susan Melton. The phone number was connected to Susan Melton and registered to Verizon.
On July 26, 2024, Robin and Susan Melton were interviewed at their residence. Susan Melton confirmed her current phone number. Both Robin and Susan Melton denied knowledge of the meltonese93@gmail.com. They did not know who Richard Melton was and denied that he resided at their residence or utilized Susan Melton’s phone number. They denied ever sending a public information request to any entity and did not authorize anyone to utilize their address, phone number, or last name for a similar purpose. Robin and Susan Melton believed that the unauthorized use of their last name, address, and phone number in electronic mail could be damaging to their reputation or careers.
A search of the Google, LLC account rubinaghosh4@gmail.com yielded pertinent information that would constitute evidence of the offense of Misrepresentation of Identity (Texas Election Code 255.005), or evidence that a particular person(s) committed the offense of Misrepresentation of Identity (Texas Election Code55.005).
These accounts are only part of the incriminating evidence publicly available through search warrants and more information would become available with the indictment documents.
Meanwhile, Patel has resumed his campaign for Fort Bend County Pct. 3 Commissioner as a Democrat, ignoring calls from a section of Fort Bend Democrats asking him drop out of the race. Other Democratic Party candidates on the ballot fear that their election chances would be in jeopardy and Patel’s name a drag on the party’s reputation.
Fort Bend County Democratic Party Chair Fred Taylor and Fort Bend County Judge KP George have not commented on Patel and are tacitly supporting his election bid.
Private investigator Wayne Dolcefino, known for exposés on public corruption, confronted Patel as he came out of an Indian American business, and asked him why he was not withdrawing from the race. Patel did not respond and drove away. The episode was recorded on video and is being spread on social media.
Meanwhile, the Hadi Law Firm has been advertising that it will file civil lawsuits against Patel on behalf of victims of Patel’s online impersonation and defamatory postings on social media.
