DIRECT ERIN BRIBE CONNECTION: "ALL THE JUDGES DO IT.."

By Juan Montoya
They met in a busy courthouse corridor to discuss fixing a $9,000 small claims case.
One, former Justice of the Peace 2-2 Erin Garcia Hernandez. The other, case fixer go-between Mari Elvia Silguero, sister of the JP's clerk Liliana Cantu.
Silguero told Garcia that she had a family couple – Vanessa and Jaime Mercado – who wanted to file a $10,000 claim against family member Griselda Mercado in her court and wanted to know what it would take to fix if for a favorable ruling.
Standing in the hallway, Silguero said that Garcia said that her court had jurisdiction below $10,000 and that the couple should lower it to $9,000. And since it involved Silguero's family, Garcia would leave it up to her to come up with the price.

These and other revelations are contained in rambling 117-page transcript of a tape recording made by Silguero to District Attorney's Office investigator Victor Cortez and DA Asst. Prosecutor Zack Rhinehart and filed in the 103rd April 21, 2015. The tape is 46 minutes and three seconds long, an affidavit accompanying the translation states.
"She was very discreet," Silguero told the investigators.
After the initial agreement was made between Silguero and JP Garcia, a comedy of errors ensues. Payments made to JP Garcia get mixed up with a BBQ fundraiser for her reelection, with money owed to Silguero by Vanessa Mercado for "merchandise," and the reluctance of Mercado to pay the rest of the $800 after Garcia rules in favor of Griselda Mercado.
Garcia had issued a default ruling in the couple's favor before leaning to Griselda Mercado after they failed to appear for a hearing. That coincided with the appearance of former DA Armando Villalobos who was hired by Griselda Mercado to represent her in Garcia's court following Garcia's adverse ruling in her relative's favor.
In her interview with the law enforcement investigators, Silguero recalls getting payments from Mercado in a taco shop on International, a ballet school behind a gas station near the corner of Central Blvd. and Los Ebanos, and in her home.
Silguero remembers getting between three or four payments from Mercado but isn't sure whether the total amount got to Garcia because she was mixing the money Mercado owed her, the fundraiser tickets, or the payments to fix the case.
She also recalls counting out $600 at the JP office window in partial payment for the fixing of the case and paying for BBQ fundraiser being held for JP Garcia's reelection. She said she put the mney in a plain unmarked envelope and handed it to her sister Cantu at the court.

CORTEZ: And how much did you count?
SILGUERO: Six hundred dollars.

CORTEZ: Where did you say you gave the six hundred dollars at?
SILGUERO: At the court, at the window.

RHINEHART: Did you sell the tickets, or what did you do with the tickets, or you kept them for yourself or what?
SILGUERO: No. I threw them away...
CORTEZ: And why?
SILGUERO: I had a lot of problems with my sixteen-year-old...and I had no time to sell them. By the time I realized it, it was going to be the following day.

SILGUERO (Toward the end of the interview): I do not want to affect the judge. I don't want to say anything against her. I did not want to say anything about this. I did not want to jeopardize anybody.
RHINEHART: Why is that?
CORTEZ (translating): I didn't want to hurt anybody.
CORTEZ: But do you understand she is doing...what she is doing is something wrong, and that does not...does not...it is not good in the United States. That's why there are laws and she took a...
SILGUERO: But all the judges do it...They all do it.
CORTEZ: We cannot get all of them. We need to start and set an example. So then they have...they have made an oath...
SILGUERO: And why did they just fire Lili? Well, if Sylvia Rodriguez also fixes tickets."