The mayor of a small Texas town has just been arrested and charged with multiple felonies.
Mayor Fred Burton of Arcola, TX is facing five total felony charges, all related to illegal activity in two separate elections.
Libs of TikTok on X listed the charges and shared his mugshot:
BREAKING: Arcola, Texas Mayor Fred Anthony Burton arrested on FIVE felony charges
– two counts of illegal voting
– one count of misuse of official information
– one count of fraud
– one count of tampering with government records pic.twitter.com/gHqmsPcrIE— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 16, 2026
The two elections Mayor Burton’s charges stem from are the Arcola Municipal runoff election in June 2025 and City of Arcola special election in April 2026.
KHOU 11 shared the specific details of his alleged crimes:
In the illegal voting charges, Burton is accused of telling at least three people to vote in a runoff election while knowing they weren’t eligible to do so.
In the misuse of official information charge, Burton is accused of using insider information to affect a $15,000 City of Arcola contract bid.
In the tampering with government record charge, he’s accused of presenting a fake estimate to defraud the City of Arcola in 2023.
The fraud charge, also stemming from an incident in 2023, alleges Burton got some councilmembers to sign off on two checks with a combined value of between $30,000 and $150,000.
According to online records, Burton was first elected as the Arcola mayor in 2018 and was reelected in 2020 and 2022. In 2024, he was unseated by Veeda Williams. Last month, he defeated Williams to regain his seat as the city leader. He was elected to serve as mayor until May 2028. It’s unclear what will happen with the position in the wake of his arrest.
Fox 26 Houston provided more coverage in this video:
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