WHO'S BEHIND ERASMO?: THROWING STONES AT LUIS SAENZ AND LIVING IN GLASS HOUSES

By Juan Montoya
By now those of us remaining readers of the Brownsville Holler have seen the 1/4 page color ad bashing Cameron County District Attorney candidate Luis Saenz.
Among other things, the recurring ad claims that Saenz was investigated by two grand juries and then goes on to list a number of "facts" that include potential criminal deeds attributed not to the candidate, but rather to underlings in his office.
For those of us who were here at the time (and the writer of the ad Erasmo Castro obviously was not ) the accusations against Saenz ring of an amateurish hatchet job concocted by someone who does not know how the sausage was made back then.
Castro wouldn't know, for example, that State District (Hanging) Judge Darrell Hester convened a grand jury in March 1995 and appointed Ann Gann as a special prosecutor to investigate possible criminal wrongdoing at the Cameron County district attorney's office, then headed by Saenz.
After the two grand juries found nothing to base an indictment of Saenz except to point out that they disapproved of the way he operated his elective office, the juries basically found that there was no actionable causes to raise against him.
At the time, one of his office workers, Mary Lou Munivez, had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against her boss.
Later, it was revealed that one of the members of the grand jury was none other than Heriberto (Eddie) Medrano, the attorney representing her in her lawsuit against Saenz. In fact, the foreman of the grand jury was none other than current Pct. 2 Constable Pete Avila.
Since the jurors found no indictable offenses, the extraordinary step of the second grand jury issuing a scathing report against Saenz is attributed to the fact that Medrano was a candidate for D.A. in the next round of elections. It would do him no good. He lost to Yolanda De Leon in the Democratic primary.
It was, in short, a very politicized grand jury. At the end, Saenz had been thoroughly vetted (by two grand juries) and found to have no punishable offenses. If having an affair in South Texas is a sin, let him without sin throw the first stone.
But just who, then is the accuser and why is he (or is he?) paying $940 a shot to the Brownsville Herald (times 5) to discredit Saenz? Who stands to gain from this hatchet job? Castro, of course, but who else? Who can afford to pay almost $5,000 for Castro to lend his considerable weight to place the ad in his name?
Saenz has only two opponents, Carlos Masso and Maria De Ford. Which one? De Ford's people emphatically say they want no part of this circus and (as are many others) are distancing themselves from Castro. That leaves only Masso.
So who is this Erasmo Castro?
Do you remember all the black-playera clad bunch who suddenly appeared on the local political scene claiming to be a "grassroots community activist" organization under the name of Cheezmeh?
Ostensibly with the best of the community in mind, the group attracted some of the local intelligentsia to its ranks at first. Then, as the true colors of the group started to be seen, the smart ones started leaving it in droves. Craig Groves, Jim Barton and wife Nena, and even the Firefighters Association, started the Cheezmeh exodus.
Erasmo Castro (because his sister Linda Castro also plays a pivotal role in this also) is the name listed as the registrant of the Cheezmeh website and his address is in Austin.
Cheezmeh was a late-comer and piggybacked on the legal groundwork and research done by local blogger Bobby Wightman-Cervantez (http://www.brownsvillevoice.blogspot.com/) and Barton (http://www.meanmisterbrownsville.blogspot.com/) to fight Fly Fronter Airline's applications for incentives from the Greater Brownsville Incentives corporation (GBIC), Brownsville Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) and the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (PUB). The coalition lobbied and protested to get the city to deny the airline's applications for funds and succeeded. City commissioner Melissa Zamora heeded the protestors' calls and spearheaded the effort to deny the applications before the commission.
Later, there would be a falling out between the players and acrimony ensued after Erasmo made it clear that he had been the leader against the airline and that credit should go to him as the "Head Cheez."
However, the blog used by Fly Frontera did its due diligence on who Erasmo Castro was and found that "a search of the National Criminal Records, Texas State Criminal Records, Cameron, Morris, Smith, Titus and Travis counties criminal records reflect that (he) DOB 01/20/1967, has the following three criminal records:
Erasmo Castro (DOB 1/20/67)
* 4/18/1994 - Felony forgery. Disposed on 4/25/1994. Probation.
*6/29/1997 - Misdemeanor Class B - Theft by check. Disposition Date: 4/23/1998. Guilty.
*10/15/1997 - Misdemeanor Class B - Theft by check (again). Disposition Date: 4/23/1998. Guilty."
Other searches on other websites indicates that a person with the same name and and the same birth date has operated at least two ministries and a public notary service up north and has sought bankruptcy protection at least twice to fend off his debtors.
That hasn't stopped Erasmo and his sister Linda from passing themselves off as pure-driven snow to Brownsville residents.
They have taken credit (and then distanced themselves from her) for electing City Commissioner Jessica Tereau-Kalifa, have threatened to recall commissioner Zamora (their former supporter on the city commission), the majority on the board of the Brownsville Independent School District, and are now openly endorsing Erin Hernandez Garcia for Justice of the Peace 2-2, Masso, and trying to discredit Texas Southmost College trustee candidate Ramon Hinojosa because he was on the PUB board that conditionally approved a subsidy for the airline (a subsidy that never happened).
Meanwhile, everyone wondered why the Cheezmeh group was so supportive of JP Linda Salazar in her race against declared candidate Marlene Dougherty, a local immigration attorney.
It wasn't until a cursory search of the local federal court revealed that both Linda and Erasmo (and other notary publics and wanna-be notary publics) are named in two federal lawsuits charging that they took people's money to fill out immigration forms without the benefit of certification by the Dept. of Homeland Security. The attorney for the half-dozen or so plaintiffs? Would you believe Marlene Dougherty, the same lawyer representing their accusers and running against Salazar?
In those lawsuits (still pending), Erasmo and Linda Castro, among others, are accused of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) for ignoring the legal prohibition against notary publics and other uncertified individuals in filling out immigration forms for petitioners and charging fees that are used to keep the enterprise going.
(Casess: 1-10-CV-00303, 1:11-CV-00081, US District Court, Southern District)
After the Cheezmeh website openly backed Erin Hernandez, Masso and Hinojosa's opponents, Castro blocked the posting of photos showing Saenz campaign events that had were being posted by his supporter Zeke Silva.
Gilbet Velasquez, who along with his son Gilbert Jr., had set up the Cheezmeh website at no charge believing that the site would be politically neutral and that the Castros would not sell out to politicians, decided they had had enough. They told Castro that unless he opened the site to everyone, they would shut it down. If Erasmo was willing to pay the $3,000-plus owed for their work, he could retain the site.
Erasmo fumed and ranted, but did not cough up the dough to keep the site going. Instead, he apparently decided to form an alliance with Saenz's main opponent and lent his name to the newspaper ads against Saenz.
What will happen if push comes to shove and Masso and Saenz were to get into a runoff? Will the gloves come off against Masso as they have come off against Saenz and his role in the port's $21 million debacle on the Bridge to Nowhere be fair game? And will his association with owners of persons charged with illegally operating eight liners be revealed in more detail?
When you lie with dogs, you will catch fleas.