filed for election as County Judge, so the Democratic Primary would decide the next El Paso County Judge. The incumbent judge declined to run for re-election. After a difficult primary election, it was determined that Cobos and Perez would face each other in a run-off election to determine the winner. Cobos won with 11,747 votes to Perez's 9,919 votes. Judge Cobos took office January 1, 2007. In an attempt to change perceptions about himself, Cobos announced to the El Paso Times, "This is a political rebirth for me. There is a big difference between where I am now and where I was three years ago. I will no longer be manipulated, blinded and influenced by special interests." Record as County Judge In addition to allegations of public corruption, Cobos’s tenure as County Judge was marked by contention related to the County’s Ethics Board and an escalating conflict with County Commissioner Veronica Escobar. Attorneys Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds filed suit on behalf of Cobos to prevent the County's Ethics Board from investigating an ethics complaint filed against him by El Paso City Representative Emma Acosta. This complaint was later dismissed by the Ethics Board. With respect to Cobos's lawsuit, “[he] lost in court ... on every significant issue he and his lawyers raised” and the visiting judge dismissed the suit after concluding that Cobos and his lawyers sued the wrong party: the ethics board instead of the county. Cobos later withdrew the suit. On January 17, 2010, Cobos accused Commissioner Veronica Escobar of “deprivation of honest services” in a criminal complaint filed with the El Paso Sheriff. The allegation concerned a vote by Escobar in 2007 to approve a settlement of a lawsuit against the County in which attorney John Wenke was representing the party suing the County. Cobos alleged that in 2010, Wenke's representation of Escobar in an ethics complaint filed against Escobar was payback for the vote three years before to approve the civil settlement. The ethics complaint against Escobar, filed by Theresa Caballero and Stuart Leeds, who had represented Cobos in his unsuccessful suit against the Ethics Board, was dismissed as “frivolous and without factual basis.” On February 13, 2010, following a two-week investigation, Escobar was fully cleared of any criminal violations by the Sheriff’s Department. He came under fire for hiring a long-time controversial El Paso political activist Jaime O. Perez as his chief of staff.