MORE THAN A YEAR AFTER COURT ORDERS, FILES REAPPEAR

By Juan Montoya

On April 24, 2012,  current Brownsville Independent School District general counsel filed a petition to expunge public records of his three offenses of theft by check, one on January 15, 1983, and two on April 26, 1984.

Salazar was not an attorney when these charges of felony theft were brought against him in the 107th District Court. He ran an optical service as a private businessman.

He became BISD counsel in April 2013, a year after he had petitioned for the expungement in district court.

The 107th District Court Judge Ben Euresti – after hearing no objection from the assistant district attorney – granted the expungement and ordered all records associated with the charges removed from the files of all the courts and other law enforcement agencies that handled them.

But no one had told the Texas Department of Public Safety that among one of those charges was one for which Salazar had been sentenced to a three-year stint in the Texas Department of Corrections, modified to seven years probation, with which he complied.

Under Texas law, even if you have been granted deferred adjudication or served probation for an offence, it cannot be expunged.

In the case for which Salzar was convicted, the judge granted deferred adjudication contingent on his fulfilling his probationary period.

The evidence shows that in April of 1984, Salazar telephoned Coburn Optical, which manufactures lenses and machinery for the optical industry, and ordered merchandise to be sent to him at Salazar Optical and Medical Company in Brownsville, Texas. 

May 15th, 1984, Coburn Optical received a check in the amount of $5,700 for payment in advance of Order No. 4090. The firm's manager stated that several shipments were made to Salazar in April of 1984. 

"In most of the shipments, the check was received before we shipped the merchandise. In one instance, there was a C.O.D. shipment made," he testified before the court.

The manager asserted that if Coburn Optical had not received the check from Salazar they would not have shipped the order. After this check and several others were dishonored, a company representative telephoned appellant who agreed to send a cashier's check to cover all of them. That cashier's check didn't clear either.

Nonetheless, the 107th ordered Salazar to pay restitution and placed him on seven-years probation.

After that verdict was delivered on its behalf, the company sought to collect on three other checks that Salazar owed them and the Cameron County District Attorney moved to collect and charged Salazar with three other counts on a different charge in on March 1985.

As the court proceedings moved on, Salazar told the court that he was appealing his conviction on the initial charge and asked for a continuance on the later charges. The court agreed and awaited the 13th Court of Appeals decision on the first conviction.

In May 15, 1986, the appeals court upheld the trial court and  the trial process began in the other three hot checks.

The additional charges stemmed back to April 1984 and the process dragged on until 1990 when Salazar's attorney – after he had served his probation on the previous charge – filed for a dismissal on the others for want of prosecution. The court, presided over by then-Judge Gilbert Hinojosa, granted the dismissal.

However, when Salazar was contemplating applying for the BISD, he filed for the expunction of all the charges for felony theft against him and that's when the DPS appealed the trial court's expunction.

The 13th Court of Appeals stated that:

"We reverse the trial court's order and render judgment denying the petition for expunction as to all three offenses. We order any documents surrendered to the trial court or to Salzar returned to the submitting agencies." Delivered and filed the 15th Day of August, 2013, Dori Contreras Garza,

Justice.

Since August of 2013 until just this week, the district court's office could not produce the original files because it was behind on following the orders of the appeals court. 

Since Salazar was granted deferred adjudication, the conviction for felony theft was set aside and the other three that Hinojosa dismissed did not go to trial. However, since he served probation for the initial charge, the criminal record cannot be expunged and remains in the court records with the district clerk.

Salzar's sister ended up marrying one of the Lucio brothers. The decision to grant dismissal on the other charges was made by Gilberto Hinojosa.

The saying that having friends in high places gets you a long way couldn't apply to someone more than to our friendly neighborhood BISD legal counsel.