ZAYAS AIRS DEPOSITION OF "TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT" LAWSUIT AGAINST PAC THAT BEAT HIM AND PARTNER CORTEZ BY DISGRUNTLED PAC PRESIDENT MARY REY

By Juan Montoya

Last Tuesday, Nov. 1, the board of trustees of the Brownsville Independent School District heard an update – at the request of trustee Joe Colunga – on the progress of the forensic audit being conducted on several of the district's departments.
During that meeting, former FBI Special Agent Daniel Deffenbaugh (not to be confused with Dannenbaum) told the board that the investigation was ongoing and that evidence of wrongdoing had already been turned over to the FBI and the local Cameron County District Attorney for prosecution.
Remember, a forensic audit is one that is specifically performed to ferret out potentially criminal behavior. In this case, it involved a $148 construction bond issue, a multi-million dollar federal technology program, and the overall operations of the BISD. It also includes the activities of the members of the board.

Since the board authorized Deffenbaugh to go back several years into the BISD's finances, it also includes former members of the board itself and the administration at the time.

Guess what happened on Nov. 2, the day after Deffenbaugh made his disclosures?

Former trustee Rick Zayas sued Mary Rey, the president of the Defeat ZayasCortezPowers Political Action committee (PAC) for alleged illegal acts performed by herself and members of the group.

The timing could not have been more deliberate.

You can imagine how former administrators and trustees are looking over their shoulder as the audit progresses.
And wouldn't you know it, a local blog associated with Zayas and Cortez aired a deposition Zayas conducted on Rey less than a week after the lawsuit was filed. In it, Ray blasts her former PAC colleagues and – at Zayas's prodding on camera – makes allegations that she knew nothing about what appeared under her name in local newspaper ads.

It's interesting to note that the deposition was made available so it could be distributed on the worldwide web a scant five days after the lawsuit was filed.

"This is unheard of," said a local attorney at the Cameron County Courthouse coffee shop. "No judge would permit the airing of a deposition in a case before his court."

The other curious thing about the whole Mary Rey "Tempest in a Teapot" is that among the main villains in the Rey fairy tale are none other than Accion America president Carlos Quintanilla, trustees Catalina Presas-Garcia, Luci Longoria and Enrique Escobedo. In other words, the two trustees who beat Zayas and his business partner Ruben Cortez in the last election.

And filming the deposition is none other than Chris Davis, former BISD AD Joe Rodriguez's son-in-law. Rodriguez has sued Presas-Garcia for handing over two audits of his annual fundraiser to the local District Attorney claiming she overstepped her fiduciary responsibilities by making the reports – which alleged potential wrongdoing and violation of BISD, state and federal laws – and violated his privacy.

That is not all. Quintanilla, not one known to take matters lying down, has stated on his blog www.carebrownsville.com that the motives behind both the Zayas lawsuit against Rey and her willingness to cast a wide brush of allegations about her former comrades stem from the fact that PAC members did not give in to her demands that they give her $50,000 to help pay for the legal defense of her son.
Randall Bolivar is charged with the murder of a Las Prietas man,.

According to the Brownsville Herald's Laura B. Martinez (August 17, 2011):

"Two years after Aaron Castillo was shot and killed outside his Garden Park home, a third suspect has been arrested in connection with the shooting, police report.

Court documents show that Rodolfo Bolivar, 32, was arrested by Brownsville police July 28 on a murder warrant. Bolivar remains jailed at the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito in lieu of $1 million bail.

Bolivar, along with his brother Randall Bolivar, 25, and Rolando Garza, 32, allegedly shot Castillo over a dispute about $500 that Castillo’s brother owed to Randall Bolivar back in February 2009.

The physical confrontation began at a convenience store and as Castillo attempted to flee, his car was rammed by an unknown vehicle, police have said.

Castillo, 30, managed to drive to his home in the 200 block of Garden Park Street and as he was getting out of his pickup, he was shot multiple times by two gunmen."
(So not only are the brothers charged with killing Castillo, but they also shot the wrong man. It was Castillo's brother, police allege, that owed Randall Bolivar the money, not the victim.)

Apparently, say PAC supporters, Rey thought that her services in becoming a president of the group should have resulted in her getting help with her son's cases.
Then who can forget that Ms. Rey was part of a delegation made up of Quintanilla, this writer, the county auditor, County Judge Carlos Cascos and representatives of the sheriff's to question the gouging of county inmates through the commissary prices charged in the jails? The commissary contract was awarded to Zayas and Cortez. Although the contract remained in their hands and the prices to inmats remained the same, she achieved ther raqnsfer of her son to nicer quarters in Willacy County as a result. The squeaky wheel got the grese and she gave up on the crusade. Now this depostion might as well be characterized as a collusion with Zayas in his lawsuit. What's so adversarial about that?  

Quintanilla had this to say about the stage-managed litigation done by Zayas using the too-willing defendant Rey:

"What can we say about Ms. Rey? She is desperate. Her two sons are in jail for murder. She has no money, and there is a glimmer of hope that Mr. Zayas will be able to defend her son against the vicious and senseless murderer of Aaron Castillo."