WHAT THE AHUMADA MISTRIAL SAYS ABOUT US ALL

By Juan Montoya

Now that a jury of his peers has been unable to reach a verdict on charges he purposely diverted a vendor’s check to his personal bank account, the responses to the declared mistrial of Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada have been predictable.
Those against Ahumada are quick to label the system corrupt, the jury “morons” and to decry the fact that Ahumada’s blood isn’t on the water.
Simply put, a jury of 12 people from Cameron County (chosen by defense and prosecutors) was not convinced by Special Prosecutor Luis Saenz’s not inconsiderable skills that Ahumada intended to deposit the $26,000 check in his account.
Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos will have another chance come January to once more attempt to pick a jury to try the mayor on the same charges. As these things usually go, Villalobos and Ahuamada’s attorneys will probably reach an accommodation and draft lesser (non-felony) charges which will probably end in some sort of slap-on-the-hand plea bargain.
That, in turn, will probably result in some sort of misdemeanor plea that will allow the mayor to retain his post, dashing the dreams of his opponents, in particular Mayor Pro Tem and wannabe mayor Charlie Atkinson who was already positioning himself for the post. Sorry, Charlie.
One interesting twist about this is how quick this case has wended its way through the court system.
Armando wasn’t that quick to pounce on the $21 million missing at the Brownsville Navigation District for the non-existent bridge that never got built there. In fact, parts of the case were heard in other counties (Harris) before there was nay interest from the blockhouse on Harrison Street.
And when there was, the only thing the DA accomplished was to line his office’s coffers with a cool $1 million smackeroos, supposedly belonging to the BND taxpayers.
Consider, also, that Texas Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., pocketed hundreds of thousands from Dannenbaum Engineering for steering the port bridge and other projects in the Valley their way. He did the same thing for the construction of prisons in that same county, with the result that several county commissioners got indicted and convicted of taking bribes from the companies recommended by Lucio.
Were it not for the fact that he is a state senator, would he ever have been paid such sums for his “services?”
Willacy County DA Juan Angel Garza was trying to make a case against Lucio for abusing the power of his office to peddle influence when he was derailed by the rest of the state judiciary and the federal government. Has anyone cried "foul" on that one?
And when Amit Livingston was allowed to “put his affairs in order” by then-Judge Abel Limas after his murder conviction, that allowed Armando's former law partner Eddie Lucio to pocket one-half million in a forfeited bond.
As part of the plea agreement with the DA's office, Livingston’s $500,000 bond was released and divided between his victim's children and her family’s attorney in a wrongful death civil suit. The judge awarded $300,000 to the children children and $200,000 to attorney Eddie Lucio for attorney fees. Lucio has no relation to Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. or his family but is Villalobos’ former law partner.
Lucio kept the cash, and a convicted murderer walks the streets.
The taxpayers never saw the $21 million that was stolen at the BND, and never will.
Armando gave Dannenbaum Engineering a clean bill of health (agreement not to prosecute) in return for the $1 million. That money was supposedly the BND taxpayers. Where is it?
It's at least a small consolation that in the Ahumada case the city got back the full $26,000 once the bank notified Ahumada the money wasn’t his.
There was little or no interest shown by prosecutors on how the money got from the city’s finance department to Ahumada’s hands. Why not?
We agree that two wrongs don’t make a right. But if slapping Joey De la Garza on the hand (restitution, probation) for stealing considerably more (say $83,000 plus ) from a facility for the dying is any indication of the severity of punishment that prosecutors and the judiciary dispenses for such a heinous crime, then Ahumada’s offenses can be seen in some context.