RESIDENCY-CHALLENGED TETREAU-KALIFA PULLED A FAST ONE ON US ABETTED BY CONTRACT LAWYER SOSSI

By Juan Montoya
There she was in all her glory.
Accompanied by her husband (with whom she said she was estranged), surrounded by a handful of black-clad Cheezmeh supporters, and aided and abetted by City of Brownsville contract lawyer Mark Sossi, residency-challenged District 2-elect city commissioner Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa marched triumphantly out of court Monday despite evidence that showed she did not live in the district she ran for.
That did not seem to matter to her supporters or to Sossi, who apparently knows that getting the state to overturn a popular election is about as difficult to make a fish live out of water.
Instead, he went along with the charade and listened as visiting Judge J. Manuel Bañales ruled that former commissioner Charlie Atkinson's removal action would require the support of the state.
Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos has said in the past that he would not get involved. That is about par for the course for Villalobos. After all, he has allowed the manipulation of the mail-in votes in the past in every county and city election including his own races. To expect him to weigh in on this piece of fraud would be out of character for the DA.
Instead, Atkinson, no sweetheart, will have to convince the Texas Attorney General to step in for him and help him remove the only write-in candidate who has ever won a seat on the city commission.
Fat chance.
From the outset, the evidence that Tetreau-Kalifa did not reside in the district has been made available to Sossi, the city secretary and the local blogs. We wouldn't be surprised if the same evidence had been made available to the local newspaper.
In that evidence packet, Atkinson provided evidence which he claims disqualifies her from running in the district because she lives with her husband at the Brownsville Country Club.
In the packet, Facebook messages sent by Tetrau to her "friends" indicate that she was living there as recently as the last month before the May 14 election.
Additionally, a police report of alleged domestic violence at the same address has her reporting the San Marcelo address as her home.
Indeed, the volatile nature of her domestic relationship has resulted in numerous reports filed with the police over the past five or six years.
Perhaps that is why her husband, a circumspect, silent individual, seemed to have wanted to blend into the nearest wall or shrubbery and avoid the attention of the media or the cheezmohsos.
This group has now claimed that their social media prowess was the cause of the Tetreau-Kalifa victory.
However, political operatives in the city city know that Charlie was his own worst enemy. His fanatical support of the millions spent on the Sports Park, his adamant refusal to consider any other viewpoint than his, and his apparent collusion with city officials to keep his political opponents off the ballot earned him no friends.
Then, the inopportune launching of the Fly Frontera regional airline on the eve of the city election was the straw that broke Charlie's back.
No matter how much Cheezmeh crows up the Tetreau-Kalifa victory, it was Charlie's own doing.
He won't be able to get Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to support removing Tetreau-Kalifa from office.
And Brownsville residents will have to live with a fraudulent city representative who said she moved in with her mother because she was seriously ill only to have both of her parents present at her swearing-in and her "estranged" husband join her in court to fight Atkinson's quixotic plan.
Bañales set the next hearing date for July 7 at which time he could dismiss Atkinson’s lawsuit.
We've been had.