LONGORIA GOES 0 FOR TWO, STRIKES OUT

By Juan Montoya

Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos – still smarting from being blanked by Pat Ahumada's lawyer on the $26,000 check charge – now says he hasn't decided whether he'll prosecute the mayor on his much-publicized charge of Driving While Intoxicated.

But that hasn't stopped the Moral Majority in the person of Rick "I Wannabe Mayor" Longoria from pitching in his 2 cents and inveighing against Hizzoner.

In a self-serving diatribe published in the Brownsville Herald, Longoria calls himself a "hard-working member of the commission" and says "I am not a drinker or a thief," insinuating, of course, that Ahumada is.

But if we remember correctly, this is the same Longoria that openly promised the Herald's Emma Perez-Treviño in a public candidate's forum that he would stop taking city benefits not specifically allowed for in the city charter.

The next day, after Longoria – who not only was covered by the illegal city insurance but also by his employer, the school district – reneged on his public promise not to partake of the illegal goodies and hid behind the excuse that he was continuing to dip into the public cookie jar "on the advice of his attorneys."

Not only later, until a state judge agreed with Moses Sorola, Captain Bob Sanchez, and Eddie De la O that the benefits – health and life insurance, a $300 monthly stipend, and free cell phones – did Ricky was forced to give up the addictive bennies.

Now, neither Ahumada nor Carlos Cisneros have been tried and convicted on the DWI charge in question in their respective cases, but it appears that Longoria is jumping the gun and champing on the bit like a filly in heat, you know, hot to trot.

Well, as far as we know, the mayor's acquittal on the theft charge prevents Longoria from calling him a thief. That almost borders, if not goes over, the defamation line. We're sure our esteemed blog barrister could enlighten his Southmost commissioner of the finer elements of the offense.

Could one consider taking benefits and cash from the public without authorization from the city charter theft?

And if one promised in public not to continue taking illegal city benefits and then continues to do it afterward, can that be considered lying?

So that makes Longoria both a thief and a liar, although, thank God, not a drinker.

If so, then Longoria spoke too soon. As far as we can tell, he and his fellow city commissioners who took the goodies and never paid the public coffers back did indeed steal from the public without any authorization.

Longoria, whose claim to bilingualism equates to a kind of broken pochismo, once tried to preach to Father Jerry Frank and Community Development director Donald Currie on the subtleties of federal housing programs. He prefaced his remarks in Spanish for the benefit of the television audience by saying his remarks weren't directed against the "padrecito."

He then went on to mangle what little Spanish he knew before Franks and Currie – in the finest seminarian style – decimated his arguments and left him looking for a fig leaf for cover.

It's bad enough that our local daily has picked Ahumada as their current whipping boy and is dying for his resignation, but allowing this mental dwarf use the paper as his megaphone borders on the absurd after he was caught lying to its own reportorial staff.