LA NOVELA "YO NO CREO EN BOBBY" NUNCA SE ACABA!

By Juan Montoya
In what has become blogosphere observers' most entertaining love-hate affair, the ongoing relationship between the Cameron County District Attorney's Office and blogger Robert Wightman has entered into yet another melodramatic turn.
This is better than "Yo No Creo En Los Hombres", they say, with Wightman playing the role of the scorned and wrathful partner.
Wightman, who has at one time or another called District Attorney Luis Saenz (and others) a "misogynist eunuch" ( a woman hater with no genitals) and "beyond stupid," has now been called to the service of the officeholder to counter reports that Luis has betrayed promises he made to the voters that he would stamp out 8-liners in Cameron County and not sell them back to gamers  as did his predecessor Armando Villalobos.
Instead, in his zeal to deliver the defense to assist with the DA's Office beleaguered public relations effort, the mercurial Wightman has instead further enmeshed that office by documenting the fact that the machines have been sold on at least one occasion (if not more) and may be operating in Starr County as we speak.
When reports surfaced that at least one first-hand source had negotiated the sale of 400 eight-liner machines to a buyer who had arcades working in Starr County, Wightman dug up a contract through his "inside sources" that proved exactly that. He posted the copy of a contract that the DA's Office had drawn up with Lowkes International,a gaming corporation with offices in Georgia and Las Vegas, Nev. with ties to local attorneys Carlos Masso and Rick Zayas.
The sale was for 400 confiscated 8-liner with an option for another 105 should the first sale go smoothly. It did, apparently.
From that revelation, thanks to the intrepid Wightman, we also learned that the DA's Office made a nice $100,000 profit in forfeiture cash paid by Lowkes plus whatever the other 105 eight-liners may have fetched. It went to fatten the DA's Office Forfeiture Fund from where the DA supplements the salaries of Saenz's favorite employees.
Other sources then indicated that Zayas, who has represented Rick Masso, nephew of Carlos, in cases brought by the DA's Office against him, had actually gone into business with Rick, who moved to Las Vegas (where Lowkes is also registered) but kept a business address here. Further probing from other quarters also revealed that Rick Masso is also the president of another gaming company, Southwest Arcades, where he is listed as president and Zayas as its registered agent.
When Wightman stumbled across the Zayas-Masso-Saenz connection, he grew livid that perhaps he was being played to run interference for the DA to counter the eight-liner sales revelations.
He criticized other bloggers for not finessing the information request game and filed his own. Now he's threatening Saenz – the county's top law enforcement official – with disclosing some document that he doesn't know exists if the DA's Office doesn't deliver the goods.
Well, we're in a fine pickle, aren't we?
That a disbarred attorney who was ridden out of Dallas on a rail now thinks he can blackmail the county DA if he doesn't knuckle under to his demands is not only ludicrous, it also shows what happens when you lie with dogs: you catch fleas.
We were surprised when over the weekend, we saw that Wightman had posted a picture that first appeared on Zeke Silva's Facebook page of Sanez and Silva with their mates at a horse race outside San Antonio where betting is allowed. The text posted purported to show them when they were still best friends and the caption said that Montoya had not been included in the picture because he had gone to the restroom.
This set off Wightman to no end and he accused Saenz of the "political rape" of Melissa Landin (formerly Zamora) the DA Office's public information officer/secretary because Saenz was taking Montoya along to bet on the ponies outside SA.
Well, guess what? Montoya was not in the picture because he was not invited and did not attend the event with Silva or Saenz. Instead, we all (including Luis) had a good laugh at Wightman's expense when he went ballistic in defense of his little buddy and inside confidante Melissa.
We could go on and on about people playing Wightman for a predictable fool, but why rub salt in the wound?
No hago dinero, pero como me divierto!
Something Wightman and other novice newsmen don't understand is that news gathering is a cumulative, evolving affair that results in a news product gathered to inform the public. It happened with the Watergate break-in that resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon. It happened with the Pentagon Papers, George W.'s WMDs in Iraq myth, Defaltegate, and just about every other major news story.
Once a story breaks and other news gatherers start to dig on their own, the story grows legs and takes on a life of its own. Whoever wrote the first that set off the feeding frenzy is forgotten. What matters is that the news gets out to the public and that it be informed of its public officials' actions. There is no room personal egotism in that. There shouldn't be.
We're all  salivating to see what Drama Queen Wightman roots out on the DA's sale of the eight-liners. Go! Robert! Go! and quit getting played so easily by the bunch at the courthouse.
We gotto go. Ya no le creas a los hombres, Wightman. Vamonos. Ya va a comenzar la novela!