SOSSI: CITY LOSES $2 MILLION VERDICT, HANDS $204,000 IN LEGAL FEES TO HIS DEBTORS...AND STILL COUNTING

By Juan Montoya
Remember the $2 million verdict that a federal jury awarded a man who had been falsely accused and imprisoned in the penitentiary for four years only to have an appeals court throw out the conviction because a videotape showed the officers and investigators had not been forthcoming with the defense attorneys and the courts?
The federal jury awarded $2 million in damages to George Alvarez, the Brownsville man wrongfully convicted of assaulting a public servant. He even served four years of eight-year sentence for a conviction of which he was later found innocent

The lawsuit named the city of Brownsville, former police chief Carlos Garcia, jailer Jesus Arias, Sgt. David Infante, Lt. Henry Etheridge, and former Cmdr. Robert Avita as defendants. The assault happened on Nov. 27, 2005.
According to that lawsuit, three jailers, went into the cell to remove him, and when he attempted to ask a question to the jailers, Arias lunged at him from behind, seized him by the neck and placed him in an illegal choke hold. The local newspaper reported that the jailer claimed that the prisoner had assaulted him while in jail custody and that reports filed by the BPD only obtained accounts from the jailers and not from Alvarez. 

The appeals court eventually cleared the prisoner of the charges, but not before he had served four years.

His lawyers said that they came upon the videotapes of the incident which disproved the police version when another attorney investigating another assault discovered their existence. Until then, it was his word against the police officers and the jail guards.

Well, after we made an information request to find out how much it had cost the city (and its insurance) to pay for the legal defense in the case, we found out that it had been referred to the firm of Guerra, Leeds, Sabo and Hernandez and that the TML Intergovernmental Risk Pool (TMLIRP) had paid $204,080.23 for the defense of this case so far.
That raised a couple of red flags. The law firm at one time (before Charles Willette retired) had been Guerra and Willette. After Willette retired  in light of the revelations in the judicial corruption trial of Abel Limas, the firm changed its name.
Nonetheless, his firm and its successor have had a cozy relationship with the city which has been documented on this pages before. We have the late Moses Sorola and Argelia Miller to thank for the initial scrutiny of why city contract Attorney Mark Sossi seesm to gravitate to steer business to his old law firm.
In the course of their investigation, Sorola and Miller found out that:
"Sossi lost a judgement of $167,00 because he took money that belonged to the firm...and was sued and lost..."
"At the time I wrote the letter," Miller wrote Mayor Tony Martinez "he had given Willette and Guerra city contracts in excess of $37,000. Now in 2011, records indicate he has given them contracts for over $75,000 from January to March 2011."
Miller wrote Cabler and Mayor Tony Martinez that it was hard for her and others to understand how Sossi "could favor a firm that sued him and that he owed $167,929 to as of 8-09-2009. It is also hard to understand how the city of Brownsville allows this arrangement."
Well, with the additional work Sossi is giving his old firm, that old debt has been paid. And what did the city residents get from the services of Sossi and his preferred legal firm?
Probably just higher insurance premiums and bad legal advice.
This is about par for the course for Sossi. Remember the firefighters' lawsuit against the city over pay raises they felt they were owed?
Listening to unsound legal advice from Sossi, the City of Brownsville lost its appeal to the Texas 13th Court of Appeals regarding application of "Me-Too" clause contained in the Brownsville Fire Fighter's Association Local 970 contract.
Labor attorney Rick Navarro (another Sossi favorite), who has made a small fortune in legal fees with the city by appealing unwinnable arbitration cases, on Sossi's urging, advised the city to go ahead with appeal, despite losing in Rolando Olivera's 445th Court October 24, 2011.
At that time, visiting Judge Hinojosa, not only ruled in favor of the union, but attached 6 percent interest to accrue from the end of the previous contract.
(That's Navarro at the far end of the table with Fire Chief Looney Lennie Perez in the middle.)

We guesstimated the figures back last November:
Let's do the rough ball park math.
If the fire fighters lump sum supplement to the last contract is $2,700,000 (the interest added to that from the end of the last contract to the date Judge Hinojosa ruled in their favor(I'm compounding the 6 percent interest annually), the added interest would be $515,743.20 for a total owed of $3,215,743.20.
Now, if we add the 5 percent ongoing interest Judge Hinojosa added in his 2011 ruling, we add an additional $329.613.60 for a grand total of $3,545,356.80. Of course, if the interest is simple, not compounded, the grand total will be somewhat less, but, in any event, the longer the city takes to settle this, the more interest accrues."
But what's a few bucks between friends, right?
Based on a five-paragraph "agreement for legal services" between the City of Brownsville and ethics-challenged Sossi inked July 2009, the taxpayers of Brownsville will have paid this lawyer $600,000 this past July 15.
Sossi, who signed the flimsy "contract" with Mayor Pat Ahumada and City Manager Charlie Cabler, has managed to ingratiate himself to a majorities of the subsequent city commissions holding office since. At $10,000 a month, plus the $5,000 per month that he has contracted out with the Greater Brownsville Investment Corporation, Sossi makes $180,000 for his mighty labors.
If he is allowed to continue his contract work for the city and the GBIC at the current compensation, he will have amassed a tidy $900,000 over the past five years for part-time work.
A cursory reading of the "contract" shows that it is an open-ended deal that can be terminated at the whim of  a majority of the city commission or by Sossi himself.
What does Sossi have on the member of the city commission that allows him to continue to dispense costly advice to his clients while losing millions in lawsuits that should have never been defended? And will he advise the city to appeal the Alvarez $2 million jury verdict and continue to dish out gravy to his old debtors?