ZAVALETTA, HERALD OFF THE HOOK: JIM SOLIS, ROSENTHAL PERSONS A, C

By Juan Montoya

Attorneys and court watchers from here to Austin and beyond are holding their breath as the continuing saga of the racketeering case of former 404th District Court Judge Abel Limas grinds on to its inexorable conclusion.

But for at least two local defendants in once case, the revelations included in Limas's plea packet memo it could mean an overturning of the decisions made in a defamation case. The case, Juan Antonio Coronado and Francisco Solis Ramirez vs. the Brownsville Herald and Peter Zavaletta will probably be appealed and the defendants will ask the court that the case be dismissed with prejudice because the court was making decisions while being bribed by the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

El Rrun-Rrun has confirmed that the Brownsville Herald and Zavaletta will ask the court to throw out the case.

"The Herald has contacted me on this issue and we feel that the court should throw out the case based on the fact that the court was making decisions while it was being bribed by the opposing counsel," Zavaletta said. "The court issued orders that favored the plaintiffs such as the granting of a continuance so they could depose former District Attorney Yolanda de Leon and denying the summary judgement in favor of the defendants."

In that case, the plaintiffs alleged that both Zavaletta and the Herald had defamed them by publishing their names in a political advertisement where Zavaletta charged that District Attorney Armando Villalobos had been lax in prosecuting child offenders. The Limas order denying the summary judgement was appealed to the 13th Court of appeals and then on to the Texas Supreme Court. It was stayed when Freedom Communications went into bankruptcy. Now, with the Limas revelations, Zavaletta and the Herald want the court to throw out the case.

"Maybe the plaintiffs could do something about it by suing their attorneys."

In the information provided in Act 4 of the Plea Packet Memo, the principals are identified as Person A and Person C. In that case, the defendants were represented by Mark Rosenthal, of Austin, and Person C is believed to be former State Representative Jim Solis.

"My office regularly has created a partnership with bigger law firms in handling some of the bigger cases such as the firm of Rosenthal & Watson," Solis states in his website. "I am currrently Of Counsel to their firm. Teaming up in this manner gives the client the biggest advantage of having the 'Two heads are better than one' and only pay one fee. This advantage puts David face to face with Goliath."

Both are also said to have been involved in the $9 million settlement of the wrongful death lawsuit titled Maria Guadalupe Garcia vs. Metro Aviation where a flight nurse and paramedic died after a AirCare helicopter crashed into the Laguna Madre on February 2008.

In that case, Limas granted Rosenthal his request for a special trial hearing and issued favorable rulings for the plaintiffs.

The Limas plea packet indicates that Limas had reached an agreement with the plaintiffs lawyers to get a 10 percent cut of the eventual settlement. Limas told federal agents that he had received a $8,000 paymmnetn though Solis from Rosenthal in consideration of being "of counsel" in March of 2008 for the firm even in as the case made its way through his court.

On Dec. 31, 2008, Solis gave Limas a $50,000 check and later on Jan. 2, another $50,000. Both checks were drawn from Solis's law firm bank account.

Additionally, in October 2009, after the $14 million settlement was announced, Limas told federal investigators that he received an additional $85,000 from Rosenthal's firm in December.