Ex-wife of officer who stopped mass shooting sets up GoFundMe... to use his heroism to advance her music career

Lakewood, TX - When you write about crime and politics, you often come across stories that are beyond belief. Nevertheless, this scenario stands out as a prime example of someone attempting to exploit a situation for personal benefit by interjecting themselves into a matter entirely unrelated to them.

On February 11, a crazed woman entered a church in Lakewood that is affiliated with evangelist Joel Osteen. It was only because two off-duty police officers intervened that nobody except the shooter was killed. Two people were injured– a 57-year-old man who was shot in the leg, and a child, estimated to be four or five years old, who was with the shooter and was shot in the head. 

The suspect, identified as 36-year-old Jeffery Escalante (who is transgender and now goes by Genesse Moreno) died at the scene. The word “Palestine” was written on a sticker on the rifle he carried, described as an AR-type weapon. He also has a history of anti-Semitic writings.

One of the off-duty officers was a Houston police officer, while the other was a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agent. This is where things began to go off the rails. 

Law Enforcement Today became aware of a GoFundMe set up as a result of the shooting by a woman named Yvonne Yovellah, the ex-wife of the TABC agent. Mind you, the agent was not injured and, as of this writing, has not been charged with anything, not that he should.

According to the GoFundMe, Yovellah and the agent, only identified as Agent Herrera, have a daughter in common. 

But you see, Ms. Yovellah is the one who needs “help.” The GoFundMe, which seeks $100,000, was set up on February 14. As of this writing, February 15, not one penny has been raised. Let’s examine why. 

Yovellah admits that her ex-husband, Herrera, “will never ask for help.” That is likely because, unlike his ex-wife, Agent Herrera isn’t using a potential tragedy to help fund his daughter’s soccer camps or leagues. Or his ex-wife’s country music career. 

“Her dad and I are so tight financially its hard to come up with the $3k it takes every season, not including the extras that come with trips that come with playing the sport.” She writes that her daughter “is leaning on becoming a lawyer, and that isn’t cheap either.” She plays on readers’ emotions, claiming she is “trying my best to keep her [daughter’s] childhood dream alive.” 

Yavellah also, however, has dreams. She wants to be a country music star and moved closer to Nashville with her daughter to “be closer to my mother.” But alas, poor Yvonne doesn’t have money to “pay the entertainment lawyer for all the things needed to be able to put my music on all platforms.” She also can’t afford all the expenses of starting a recording career, including “studio, engineer, mixing, producer, mastering, cowriters,” etc. She says that she needs “funding for the videos.” 

Are we getting the picture here? Yvonne Yovellah is trying to fund her dream of becoming a big country star, and her daughter’s soccer career and college dreams are secondary. 

She then says that her daughter didn’t like Nashville, so she moved back to Texas with her father. But according to her, Agent Herrera didn’t put their daughter in sports, so she started to get in trouble, causing our budding Nashville star to have to return to Houston “in the middle of getting some of my songs recorded.” 

But our heroine, Yvonne, got her daughter back into soccer but had to move out of her apartment because she couldn’t make it on her $20/hour Uber gig. She claims that in Nashville, she drove motor coaches for some country music stars, but now, she’s stuck driving people back and forth from the airport for an average of $20/hour. Do you feel sorry yet? 

Back to her daughter. Channeling her best Hillary Clinton, Yovellah says that “it takes a village to raise a child, will you be a part of that village?” 

Fundraising off a near tragedy. Why $100,000? Our worthy wanna-be country star explains. 

“This is what it costs to make these dreams come true. I need to complete an album, and this is what it takes.” Using the words of Joel Osteen, Yovellah quotes Osteen: “I rather shoot high and miss it, then aim low and make it.” 

Near the end of her message begging for strangers to fund her music career, Yovellah admits she has zero relationship with her ex-husband’s family. 

“Update on Agent Herrera: His mother said He is getting Counceling [sic]. They don’t tell me much except he’s fine.” 

Fundraising for your music career while disguising it as also helping your daughter–on the backs of your ex-husband’s heroic actions of preventing a likely mass-casualty incident–is disgusting. Honestly, how low can someone go? 

The title of the fundraiser? “Lakewood Church Hero–One way to give back!” 

You cannot make this stuff up.