NAVARRO SNATCHES COOL PAYDAY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT

By Juan Montoya
He was appointed by the former majority on the Brownsville Independent School District to dig up dirt to justify the termination of Special Needs department director Art Rendon.
According to sources who saw the reports, the work product delivered consisted of district-authorized audits that were warmed over and packaged for the board. Unconvinced that the material amounted to a smoking gun, the new majority agreed to settle with Rendon on his whistelblower lawsuit and gave him a one-year contact at his previous salary.

An Open Records request to the BISD indicates that  Ric Navarro, of the Harlingen law firm of Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal, P.C., was paid almost $400,000 for his role in the "investigations." In the end, with Rendon getting reinstated as part of the settlement with the BISD, all that laborious process gathering the "evidence" seems to have been all for naught.

"All we got was the work of our district auditor warmed over," said a BISD administrator. "There was no smoking gun anywhere to prove the allegations that were being made by the board majority then.That was an expensive exercise in futility."
"Ric was the biggest winner in that case," said an attorney acquainted with the case.
Well, for some reason or other Navarro has again been assigned to defend the City of Brownsville in the ongoing investigation of the police shooting of Javier Gonzalez Jr. in a Cummings Middle School hallway.
So far, the Navarro strategy has consisted of trying to throw a blanket over the surveillance tape and investigative documents of the shooting. The city has resorted to the time-honored delay strategy of requesting an opinion from the Texas Attorney General's office. The city claims that because the tapes and documents are part of an ongoing investigation, it is within its right to prevent them from public access.
That comes on the heels of the firm defending the decision by Brownsville Fire Chief Lenny Perez to terminate firefighter and firefighter union representative Marco Longoria who Perez charged with insubordination after the firefighter refused to go to a particular clinic to have a drug test after a fender bender between his department vehicle and a woman in a parking lot.
Well, even though the city lost that one, too, Navarro's firm pocketed a cool $21,969.11 for its attorneys' brilliant defense of Perez's actions.
Notoriety has also dogged Navarro who was counsel of record for the city of Weslaco. The investigation into corruption in the Weslaco PD includes tape recordings obtained by the FBI and several media outlets indicating that Navarro counseled members of the city commission on how to get around personnel guidelines to promote Cpl. Baudelio Castillo above other higher-ranking officers.

Once Castillo was promoted to the position of assistant police chief, he is accused of selectively sending officers to patrol elsewhere and protecting the activities of specific drug dealers. The investigation into the drug running is said to be continuing.
In the Weslaco case, sources told a local television station that Castillo craved power and that members of the city commission were looking for a way to give him a high position within the police department. Tapes made available to the station indicate that then-city manager Frank Castellanos talked to Navarro about making this possible.

"I think what they want with Baudelio, and the commission. They want a police chief that will then put Baudelio in a position where Castillo can get more money and have more influence."

The city commission apparently wanted legal help on the matter and turned to their attorney Navarro to find a way.

A taped recording caught commissioners meeting in executive session to discuss how to put Castillo in charge of the police force.
"I think I understand what you guys want, and based on this I’ll follow the process to get you there. But, I’m thinking to get what you guys want, I think you guys need to advertise for three days," says Navarro.

The commission eventually decided not to make Castillo chief because he wasn’t qualified and they  created an assistant chief position.

In June of 2009, Catellanos laid off five top city leaders including the police chief.
The layoffs cleared the way for Castillo to rise to power at the department.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS reported that once Castillo took over he dismantled the narcotics department and opened up a smuggler’s highway through the mid-Valley.
"There were certain known drug traffickers who were pursued and other traffickers who were left alone," a source told the station.
That allegation has the attention of current city leaders and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the station reported recently.