DA'S 8-LINER "CRUSADE" FIZZLES INTO P.R. CHARADE

By Juan Montoya
The "crusade" against 8-liners ostensibly to fight cartel money laundering and the crime it breeds has turned into a Prohibition Era-style charade pitting the power of the state against old ladies and retirees playing a cat-and-mouse game with the minions of the Cameron County District Attorney to play the maquinitas on the sly.
And what started out as a public relations gimmick to get Cameron County DA Luis Sanez elected against Carlos Masso – who was painted as the protector and overlord of the 8-liners because of some of his family members' involvement – achieved its goal. Now, many are questioning whether the gimmick has run its course and it's time for the DA's Office to move on to serious crime.
So far, there have been no press releases or media splashes announcing any indictments of cartel defendants engaged in either money laundering related to the 8-liners, or of murders or kidnappings associated with the games.

For a while, it was all one could do not to see a televised report of investigators from the DA's Office, the Cameron County Sheriff's Dept., or a host of other law enforcement entities raiding some 8-liner operation somewhere and a parade of customers – a lot of them old ladies and retirees – paraded across the screen and the machines hauled off in tractor trailers by the lawmen. In fact, Valley News Central lists at least 17 such news reports. Among them was the arrest of former City of Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada and even a raid on the Port Isabel American Legion Post.
The cash seized during those raids eventually ended in the forfeiture fund of the DA's Office for him to use as he saw fit to fight crime.
DA Luis Saenz pulled out all the stops when he made the announcement April 13, 2013, in front of the Cameron County courthouse surrounded by elected officials and virtually every law enforcement entity in Cameron County.
The law enforcement agencies involved in "Operation Bishop" include the DA's Office, Sheriff's Dept., county constables, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Texas Rangers, and police departments from Brownsville Harlingen and San Benito.
In an interview, Saenz said that Operation Bishop was named after new Brownsville Catholic Diocese Bishop Daniel E. Flores since the clergyman complained about the establishments because he felt that they were diminishing the amount of money made in local parish bingo halls and church collection plates.
That dovetailed with law enforcement concerns about the salons being used as fronts from money laundering by cartels and inciting the type of crime like in Starr County.

"It got to me second hand that the bishop had visited our county judge (Carlos Cascos) and had implored on him to do something because his collections had fallen down on Sundays and that's understandable," he laughed. "So when it came around to pick a name for the operation, we said, well, why not Operation Bishop? It was a catchy name and it just stuck. I am very proud of that...we started in April and within a matter of four or five months we had shut down the vast majority of them. I'm very proud to say that we were able to do in a matter of months what other administrations hadn't been able to do in years."
Cascos has denied that the event took place, but stood among the elected officials when Saenz announced the operation. In fact, he had Saenz swear him in to take office as Cameron County judge despite the fact that he will be taking office as Texas Secretary of State once the Texas Senate confirms his appointment by Gov. Greg Abbott.
In the end-of-the-year 2013 interview, Saenz said Operation Bishop had cut down on the incidence of crimes associated with the illegal payments to customers. He pointed out at the time that just the day before there had been a holdup reported in Starr County where five men stormed the business and took purses and wallets from customers. They also made off with cash from the business.
Saenz also said that his new policy of not selling back the eight-liner machines back to the owners contributed to the success of the operation. In the past, he said that the DA's office under convicted Armando Villalobos would allow the owners to purchase them back at auction and then set up shop again.
"What made the difference was my decision to say 'we're not going to sell these eight-liners back to you. That's what had been happening. You would seize them today and in a matter of days they would make and agreement where they would resell them. What do you think they were going to do once they resold them? They would put them back. So when I put the word out that we're not going to sell them back to you that set off shock waves to the eight-liner community. Some of them started loading them up on their own and moving out."
Saenz added. “I look forward to the day I can run a steam roller over them.”
That's why it was surprising when – during the course of investigating a purported sale of 400 machines to a Starr County buyer – it was learned that the DA's Office had signed a contract with Lowkes International to sell the Georgia-Las Vegas, Nev. gaming corporation more than 500 machines. It was even more stunning to local political observers and law enforcement personnel when it was learned that Lowkes' representatives in Brownsville included attorneys Rick Zayas and Carlos Masso, his political opponent who Saenz had branded as pro-maquinitas.
Other sources indicate that many of these machines were sold to a Robert Cuellar, a major 8-liner operator in Hidalgo and Starr Counties. Some sources even pinpoint La Grulla, in Starr County, as a final destination for some of the machines sold by the DA's Office, where they assert the machines are being used.

In this case, there was no auction. Saenz personally approved the buyer and the sale himself.
Even though Saenz asserted that he included the caveat in the sales that the machines should be taken out of the State of Texas, the contract with Lowkes contains no such language. Saenz himself has indicated that he could not force the new owners where to take the machines.
"I wanted them to be out of my jurisdiction," he said.
Saenz's cyber megaphone cum apologist Robert Wightman states that it is not the DA's fault that he signed a contract without a clause forbidding the operation of the machines in the State of Texas as does the one in Henderson County.
The Henderson County contract, he states, contains the phrase: "PLEASE NOTE: Condition of sale requires that these 8 liner gaming machines not to be used or re-sold in the State of Texas. The buyer will be required to sign an affidavit. The buyer shall not have any conviction related to gambling or gambling related offenses."
Wightman recommends that Saenz fire the deficient Asst. DA who formulated the contract he signed. Would that be Matthew Kendall or Edward Sandoval?
At the heart of the matter is the money generated by the 8-liners. For example, the Lowkes sale netted the DA's Forfeiture Fund $100,000. And there are indications that ogther sales have occurred, but information requests have been turned down by that office on the grounds that inquiries on them is vague and "ambiguous" because it does not specify what entity made confiscated the devices, which machines, and the name of the buyer. The refusal to hand over the information did not specifically deny that other sales have been made and that the money went into the fund.
In his press conference where he introduced Operation Bishop, Saenz focused on this subject.
“The average eight-liner business generates thousands of dollars in revenue daily,” he said. “This is revenue known to benefit organized crime. This is revenue that doesn't benefit our community, because it’s not being spent in our community.”
He and Sheriff Omar Lucio have state din the past that the 8-liner industry generates at least $300 million annually. The money is known to leave the County and even Texas.
“When money stays in the community, sales tax revenue goes to your local governments and allows them to provide resources for you – better streets, more libraries, more services, etc. Let’s not forget job creation and sustainability,”
One group that does benefit from the seizure of cash and the money generated from the sales of the machines is the investigators and Ass. DA's in Saenz's office. Virtually all of the top personnel get a take from the forfeiture fund to augment their salaries.

For example, a cursory glance at the DA's salary schedule indicates that chief investigator George DeLaunay  gets $18,000 from the DA Forfeiture Fund. Asst. Prosecutor Gus Garza gets $16,000 and Pete Gilman gets $5,500. Rene Garza gets $1,500 and Chief Assistant Edward Sandoval gets an additional $1,5000 to add to his salary. Victor Cortez gets $8,000. The department's public information officer Melissa Landin gets $7,500 from the same fund. The list goes on and on. If someone doesn't get a cut of this fund, then he or she are probably not on the DA's favorites list.
The fact that the machines may have ended in Star County where they (according to Sanez, Homeland Security, the DEA, FBI, Rangers, etc.) are generating all kinds of cartel mischief like laundering money from drugs by the Mexican cartels, robberies and taking diaper and milk money from the poor bring up yeat another question.
If Saenz vowed to stamp them out in Cameron County, what makes Starr County different?
After all, after the downfall of Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño, Saenz was named chairman Wednesday of the Southwest Border High-Intensity Drug-Trafficking Areas South Texas Partnership.
The Partnership consists of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service—Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Additional members include local, state and county law enforcement agencies from Bexar, Cameron, Dimmit, Hidalgo, Jim Hogg, Kinney, La Salle, Maverick, Val Verde, Webb, Willacy, Zapata and Zavala counties and (you guessed it)...Starr County.
Some of our readers have complained that the enforcement of Operation Bishop has been highly selective and say that even though they have called CrimeStoppers with tips on working 8-liner arcades around Brownsville, their calls have been ignored. They say that even though La Guera Michelada on frontage road in Olmito was raided recently, the one openly operating on the 9100 block of Fresno Street continues as does the one at the San Rafael Bar in the outskirts of Brownsville, the one on upscale neighborhood on San Marcelo in the Brownsville Country Club, and the Phoenix of the maquinita places at the corner of Dockberry and FM 511 operated out of a junkyard and faith healer (El Curandero). This last one was raided once and is back in business even though the DA's Office was provided information that the woman who ran the establishment used to send Moneygrams from a local Walmart totaling thousands of dollars daily.
"Dile a Luis que no sea mamon," said a man whose own 8-liner arcade near to the Curandero's place was raided and the machines confiscated.
"My sisters and my mom are always going to play las maquinitas," said a county worker. "They know where they can go play and no one bothers them. There's a lot of them out there."
A high-ranking official at the Brownsville Independent School District said her retired mother and her friends were angry at teh DA's Office because they enjoyed spending a few hours together drinking offee and trying their luck.
"She didn't spend over $20 with her friends and they are mad that Saenz has put a stop to that," she said. "She doesn't have the money to go gamble on the horse races like Saenz does or to go to Louisiana or Eagle Pass to the Indian casino."
And a local attorney was surprised when he learned from his daughter that his own mother went to play them in San Benito just last week.
"I don't want my mom arrested," he protested. "But they love to get together with their friends to hang together and play them. This thing has gone on long enough. Luis got elected. The campaign is over It's time he let it go."
This January 28, Saenz will be the main speaker at a CrimeStopper event and his speech, according to the group's program is "Do the Right Thing."
Will he?