J'ACCUSE: MCGARR HAUNTS PENA FROM THE GRAVE

By Rex McGarr

I was a man of the soil.

When I came to Cameron County I was fresh out of college (20 years old) and worked as an entomologist with the Dept. of Agriculture. I helped farmers (many of them Mexican-Americans) deal with problems they had with pests and other insects.

After a time I got into farming, having come from a farming background myself in Mississippi.

Hard work from dawn to dusk with the Pedraza family on my spread allowed us to build up the farm to where we had acquired more than 300 acres and operated profitable venture.

Robert Pedraza, who eventually became my ranch foreman, was born on my ranch. His dad was a good friend and Robert became my trusted aide. (In the picture at right there, I am sitting with my good friend Pedraza, Robert's dad, who is wearing his trademark hat.)

In the 60s we decided to get into livestock. As Robert used to say, within a few years we had more than "700 mama cows" breeding on the ranch.

I knew my time was coming and so –with Robert's assistance – we looked for a lawyer to put my things in order so we wouldn't be surprised by time and end up giving the government everything we worked for.

It took us a while for us to find one. Time after time I'd hear them say things that didn't make any sense to us and I'd signal to Robert that we should leave the office.

Finally, at Robert's recommendation, we found Ruben Pena. Since he was family (he was married to one of Robert's primas), Robert felt we could trust him. We did.

In no time at all Peña had drafted up an estate appraisal pegging the value of the land at $1.8million.

Then Robert recommended Peña to draft my will and he did. Him and Robert were named as co-executors.

Again, since he was one of Robert's relations, I thought nothing of it. We were not lawyers. If the Pedrazas trusted him, so be it.

Then, later, Peña drafted a power-of-attorney naming Robert as my guardian. A few months later, Peña also petitioned the probate court to have me declared incompetent, placing the estate in the co-executors' hands.

Robert – acting on the advice and counsel of Peña – borrowed heavily against the estate and then defaulted on the loans. As a result, between the time the time I fell ill and the time I was buried on the ranch in the soil I always loved, the estate was so heavily encumbered that it was ultimately lost to the banks by foreclosure.

The money and land I left for my sister, nephews, and for Robert and his family was lost.

Too late, my relatives and Robert sued Peña charging self-dealing and legal malpractice after the estate was gobbled up by the debt.

Peña never disputed that he had taking part in the legal and financial maneuvering that resulted in my nephews and the Pedrazas losing the inheritance I left them. Instead, his defense then – and now – is that the statute of limitations had run out and the courts agreed with him that they should not be afforded the relief they sought from him and the boys in the banks.

Now I understand that Peña calls that an "exoneration."

The courts agreed with Peña's motion for summary judgment in denying Robert and my family relief.

In other words, there was nothing to be done to regain what I had worked for all my life and left them to help them out.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. That's what lawyers are known to do, and I suppose they will continue to do that as long as they exist.

But I understand that now the lawyer likens himself to our Saviour and says he will "turn the other cheek" in this season of sacrifice and resurrection rather than "mudsling" back at his detractors in the newspaper.

I was raised never to use the Lord's name in vain, and so, probably, was he. I leave the final judgment to God and to you, the living. But from where I lie, the term "sacrificial lamb" doesn't really apply in his case.