SAENZ TRIES TO CONTROL SPIN OF INFO FROM DA'S OFFICE

By Juan Montoya
There is a saying in Spanish that addresses equal treatment under the law.
It is elegant and rustic at the same time. It states "O todos coludos o todos rabones," meaning that – with a tail or without one – everyone should be treated the same.
Late last year we got some leads that – contrary to his campaign promises – Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz had not destroyed the eight-liner machines he had confiscated from local arcades and salons. But – like his predecessor Armando Villalobos – we got indications that he had sold at least 400 of them to a buyer who put them to work in Starr County.
We found it hard to believe that Saenz had gone back on his word after he had promised an array of law enforcement agencies at the steps of the judicial wing of the county courthouse.
The members of the different agencies – the DA's Office, Cameron County Sheriff's Dept., county constables, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Texas Rangers, and police from the Brownsville, Harlingen and San Benito police departments and elected officials– listened as Saenz vowed not to do what his predecessor Villalobos had done.
On December 6, 2014, we filed our request for information and made it pretty simple. Tell us if you have sold any of the eight-liners confiscated by your office, who you sold them to, and how much did you get in return?
Or, formally: "Please consider this an open records request by the Texas Open Records Act.
I am requesting any and all documents containing information concerning the sale or transfer of 8 liner machines or other gambling devices which have been seized by the Cameron County District Attorney office during Operation Bishop from January 1,2013 to present. Please include name and address of buyer and price paid to this office."
That seemed  – to us, anyway – a pretty straightforward request. But just in case that our email would be swallowed by cyberdemons or the like, we sent three identical requests to D.A. Luis Saenz, Melissa Landin (Zamora), and Asst. DA Matthew Kendall.

On the very 10th day after our request was made (actually on Dec. 17, 11 days later) we got this in response: "Please find enclosed the Response to your December 8(?), 2014 Public Information Request. A hard copy will be sent to you via certified mail return receipt in tomorrow’s mail."
This was an  email from one Edward Adrian Sandoval, an Asst. DA we had never heard about informing us that he would be handling our request, but that he needed a mailing address so that he could communicate with us. Why, we wondered, did he require a mailing address if one had never been needed in the past? In other words, why snail-mail instead of email?
Now, we had been told by previously reliable sources in that office that the dragging out of the response of our info request was just a ploy to stretch out the process and stonewall us to the point of fatigue so that we would just tire of the game and go away. With the additional delay attributed to the holidays, we would be told, they said, that our request was vague, not specific, and "ambiguous."
Well, "Goooolly," as Gomer Pyle used to say, they were right on the mark.
This Sandoval finally emailed us the letter which said that "no responsive documents can be tendered at this time as your request is (ready?) ambiguous."
And, predictably, Sandoval goes on into saying that "although the DA's office spearheaded (his words, not mine) Operation Bishop, various different local law enforcement agencies have participated in the operation, made arrests, and seized contraband...The DA's Office has only effectuated some of the seizures.
"Under a plain reading of your request, it would seem you seek information /material of those seizures done by the DA's Office investigators," Sandoval wrote. Since we referred to Operation Bishop, he continued, it would appear to him that we were seeking information relating to the entirety of the seizures performed under Operation Bishop. So be specific, he hints, and clarify your request.
OK. We know a stonewall when we see one, and this is a good one. Sandoval wanted us to specify what specific machines (sweepstakes, eight-liners, computers, etc.) seized during which specific raid, on what specific date, and from what specific establishment, and by what specific law enforcement entity we are referring to.
In other words, a snipe hunt.
Look, what we wanted to know is did you sell any of the machines that you seized from gambling parlors here to someone else elsewhere so they could them to work just as they were before you seized them? And what did you do with the money? And how does this square with published statements attributed to the DA's Office that the machines would not be resold?
We had already spoken with a former DA's Office employee who said he had personal knowledge of the buyer and the profit made by the DA's Office on the sale.

Well, we had hit a wall and it was plain that Saenz did not want to divulge anything on the matter.
But thanks to intrepid blogger Robert Wightman, Saenz personally instructed Melissa On January 5 to deliver onto his hands a copy of a contract with Lowkes International for the sale of 400 machines with an option to buy another 105 for a cool $100,000. But, like Bill Clinton, the DA's Office says that they have not touched a penny of the loot yet. In other words, Saenz didn't inhale.
What was the difference between that coludo and us? And why the deferential treatment when they made us jump through the hoops on our request?
Whereas we got a stonewall letter from Sandoval, Wightman got the personal touch from Landin (AKA Zamora) and Saenz himself. Take a gander at the missive they sent him.
Addressing Wightman as "Bobby" is a nice touch, ain't it?
And it's not Ms. Landin, no, rather it's "Melissa." It's enough to warm the cockles of your heart.
And the speed in which they forked over the documentation (he is, after all, document-driven, he says) didn't compare with ours, regardless of the content of our request. It was from one day to the next with a personal touch for good measure.
So while Wightman claimed on January 5 that Melissa "gave me nothing," by the 6th he already had the goods from...Melissa.
Well, we'll take the information where we can get it. The contract to Lowkes may be one of many. Sanez said he had to do something with the machines because the Texas Water Quality Board prohibited  him from destroying the machines fearful that mercury or other contaminants might make their way into the water table. Hmmmm.
And the Brownsville P.D. was after him to make some space at the old Levi Plant where Saenz was storing the machines because he was just too successful in confiscating them and was running out of space.
Selling them, therefore, was the logical and pragmatic thing to do.
In fact, Saenz confirmed as much when I spoke with him at the steps of the Cameron County Courthouse.
"I just wanted to make sure they were out of my jurisdiction," he said.
This obvious manipulation of information to selected sources is too blatant for anyone to miss. What else is going on in that office that Saenz and Landin don't want us to know? Will we have to wait until they use "Bobby" again to get the proper spin on things? You go, boy!