JIM SOLIS'S FALL FROM GRACE

By Juan Montoya
I remember when I was working for the English edition of the Valle section of El Bravo newspaper from Matamoros.
We would gather the news, translate the Mexican reporters' stories and try to make them readable for our English readers. We had the likes of Delia Gonzalez, Cecilio (Sexilio) Cortez, and Javier Dragustinovi (Dragus) working the bridge and city beats. These guys couldn't get enough of taking pictures of the bridge, for some unknown reason. They still can't.
Our office was in a small mall across the street from old the Reasaca Club which is now part of the University of Texas at Brownsville.
At the time we shared office with the Carretero girls Nancy and Christina. They sold the advertising and I had under me apprentice Tony "call me Anthony" Gray. Jerry McHale did sports.
That was way back then in 1992. At the time, Tony was just getting his teeth into newspaper work, which I adamantly forbade him from calling a "gig." Eventually, he got the hang of it.
This was the first time Gray had covered anything vaguely political and he got a chance to rub shoulder and ruffle some feathers with local pols. One in particular comes to mind.
We had written something or other about the District 38 race in which Jim Solis made his first effort to attain public office. Apparently, Jim wasn't too happy with the coverage and had one of his underlings corner Gray at an evcent at the Civic Center and bring him over to him.
Tony remembered that Solis and his men was wearing a pin stripe suit much the rage at the time. He likened them to the Godfather.
"I though we were friends, Tony," Gray later told us of his encounter with the sensitive pol.
Solis was elected that year and would eventually go on to achieve a pretty impressive list of accomplishments.
After taking office on January 12, 1993, he was was re-elected to a seventh term in November of 2004 and retired in January of 2007.
While there, he was named 2001 Legislator of the Year for his hard work and positive contributions made to improve the economic climate of Texas. He was also the the first recipient of the Distinguished Leadership Award by the Workforce Leadership of Texas for his leadership as Chairman of the House Economic Development Committee in support of local workforce boards and the state’s workforce system.
In 2001 he received the Health Care Champion Award by the Association of Community Health Centers for his authorship of the Community Health Centers Revolving Loan Fund and support of public health issues.
This morning Solis pleaded guilty in federal court in Brownsville to bribing ex-404th state District Judge Abel C. Limas in exchange for favorable rulings in two civil lawsuits.
Solis was "Person C" identified in the plea packet memorandum between Liimas and federal agents. He was reported to have stood quietly before U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who repeatedly asked him if he was pleading guilty because he was guilty.
"Yes," Solis said.
The two civil lawsuits in which Limas received bribes in exchange for favorable rulings are the Maria Guadalupe Garcia, individually, et al. vs. Metro Aviation, Inc., et al., and the case of Juan Antonio Coronado and Francisco Solis Ramirez vs. Peter Zavaletta, et al.
In the Garcia case, the family of a nurse and a paramedic who died in a helicopter crash in teh Laguna Madre received $9 million. Solis is said to have acted as a conduit for attorney Mark Rosenthal, of Austin. In the Zavaletta case, he is said to have paid Limas for favorable rulings. That case is still under appeal and includes the Brownsville Herald for having published an ad with the names of persons accused of child abuse or molestation.
Solis’ sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 1.
The sad thing about this is that many observers say that the helicopter case was a pretty much open and closed case because the National Transportation Safety Board determined that pilot error was to blame for the accident. Apparently, people had gotten used to thinking that you had to pay a bribe in that court even for cases that merited an almost certain verdict.
It was, apparently, the culture of corruption that flourished in Limas's court that drove him and others to assume you had to pay Limas his "mordida" to get a fair ruling.
Others more, undoubtedly, will fall before this is all over. For Solis, however, the fall from grace was the culmination of a rapid rise to fame that came down in ashes.
Limas pleaded guilty on March 31 to one federal count of racketeering. He will be sentenced in July.