WHO IS WIGHTMAN TO CALL M. ESTHER A "WELFARE QUEEN?"

By Juan Montoya
Drama Queen and blogger Robert Wightman  has grown fond of throwing wild accusations against everyone and their mother.
To him. if you hold a different opinion than his, you are a moron, an idiot, or any number of choice insults.
But this latest drivel stating that the creation of the Justice of the Peace 2-3 court that JP-elect Mary Esther Garcia won in a runoff with former constable Pete Avila makes her a "welfare queen" goes even beyond his wildest rantings up to now.
If Pete had won, would Wightman call him a "welfare queen," too? I dare him.
Wightman says that the fact that Cameron County Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides voted to create the office even before her daughter had decided to run for the new position confirms his newest conspiracy theory.
We all remember that it was former Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez who was behind the creation of the new JP office saying that the new court should be located at Veterans Bridge so that the traffic violations levied by the Texas Department of Public Safety could be handled there.
When the late Tony Torres died and Erin H. Garcia beat Yolanda Begum for the JP 2-2 position, Hernandez changed his tune and started campaigning to do away with the JP 2-3 court he helped to create. To make matters worse, Erin Garcia didn't even make the runoff in 2014 primary for JP 2-2 between Begum and Jonathan Gracia.
But' let's examine the accuser and the accused closer.
Ms. Garcia has worked in county offices (including Road and Bridge office and county court-at-law courts as an administrator) and in legal offices as a paralegal.
Wightman, on the other hand, alighted in Brownsville after he was disbarred in Dallas. He has made his money initiating litigation to intimidate people and businesses into giving him money to get him off their back.
For example, Wightman has the nerve to call someone who has been working all her life doing honest work a "welfare queen" while:
*He borrowed money from the taxpayers to pay for his legal education, and then welshed on paying them back. Wightman then got himself disbarred on Jan. 11, 2002 in the the 298th District Court of Dallas County. The court found that: Wightman brought or defended a frivolous proceeding. The court also found Wightman took a position that unreasonably increased the costs or other burdens of a case and delayed the resolution of the case. Wightman, in representing a client, engaged in conduct engaged to disrupt a proceeding. Wightman was also found to have communicated with another party regarding a case when he knew that party was represented by counsel. The court also found Wightman made a statement that was either false or with reckless disregard to its truth regarding the qualifications or integrity of a judge.
He then claimed that he had no money and was medically disabled so he could have the loans forgiven. In his motion for the discharge of the loans he claimed he hadn't worked in 12 years. A loan analyst with the Dept. of Education said Wightman's earnings disqualified him from having his loans discharged, which triggered the lawsuit. According to Delfin Reyes, Wightman owed the government $40,340 at the time he filed the lawsuit claiming disability and asking to have his loans forgiven even though he earned $17,053 in 2003, which exceeded the poverty guidelines of $12,120.
Nonetheless, Wightman persisted and after more than a year of threats and litigation, the U.S. Dept. of Education threw up its hands and agreed to discharge the $40,000 in student loans.
*Wightman – after spending less than two years in the peace-time Army and getting a discharged based on a psychiatric condition – claims a 100 percent service-related disability and gets a 100 percent taxing exemption on his $109,000 residence from the Cameron County Appraisal District..

The information request to the Cameron County Appraisal District sought the VA disability rating only and the number of the claim, and not any specific private medical information.

The CCAD asked for a Texas Attorney General's opinion on the matter and the AG sided with Wightman on the districts' decision to withhold the information from the public. Based on whatever documentation Wightman provided the district, he continues to receive the exemption from paying taxes and allows the rest of the county's taxpayers to shoulder the tax load. Wightman fought the release of any information tooth and nail and labeled the request for the information on his claim an assault on the rights of all veterans.
So, someone who stiffed the taxpayers from paying the $40,000 he borrowed from them to pay for his education, and who now claims he has a service-related disability and unloads the burden on other county taxpayers, now calls someone who earned the trust of the voters who elected her to office a "welfare queen?