WHO'S GIVING LIMAS CALABAZAS FOR HIS HELP AGAINST ROSENTHAL AND FOR MIGDALIA LOPEZ?

By Juan Montoya

If you have been keeping up with the articles by Emma Perez-Treviño on the ongoing fray between Austin attorney Marc Rosenthal versus the federal government, the law firm of Chaney, Saenz, & Rodriguez and Union Pacific and 197th State District Curt Judge Migdalia Lopez, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the feds and the law firm defending the railroad are trotting out disgraced 404th District judge Abel C. Limas – now a convicted felon – as a character witness for Migdalia.

This absurd turn of events came to light when Mitchell C. Chaney, representing Union Pacific, said he had a letter from Limas denying he heard Judge Lopez tell Rosenthal during a meeting at a Brownsville restaurant that his firm had already donated about $1,000 tow

ard the judge's re-election campaign and asking him to pitch in $2,500.

While on the stand on his motion to have Lopez recuse herself from the case involving the railroad which Chaney's firm represents, Rosenthal said on the stand that both Limas and Chaney's firm were helping Lopez fight off allegations of "criminal acts she committed" while on the bench.

During that conversation, Rosenthal said Limas was sitting across the table and listened to what Lopez had said. Limas, while admitting he had arranged for the meeting between the two, denied having heard any of the conversation. Also, during the testimony, Rosenthal has charged that Lopez felt she had a future at Chaney's law firm when she sought "other endeavors" after her term in office expired.

Now, if you know the layout of the restaurant in question – the 77 Restaurant near Four Corners – you know it is almost impossible for Limas not to have heard what the other two were saying since it is a scant two or three feet across from the table. For him not to have heard the conversation defies belief.

And how, indeed, did Chaney's firm attain the letter with Limas' denials when the former judge is awaiting sentencing on his plea bargain agreement with the federal government that he had accepted bribes for rendering orders favoring the bribing attorneys, including former state representative Jim Solis who also has pleaded guilty to the same offenses?

If you read the plea agreement Limas signed with the federal government, you find it hard to believe that he would do anything for free. Is it money, or time of his sentence that is prompting his cooperation now?

Those questions have not been answered. Rosenthal charges that Cheney's law firm and the federal prosecutors are playing footsies and working in tandem to have the lawsuit against the railroad dismissed and to gather (fabricate?) evidence for use by the government to prosecute him in his upcoming trial on racketeering charges. He had asked the courts to have Lopez recuse herself from the case. In the end, Appeals Court Judge Linda Yanez denied the motion.

Some say that the very fact that we have to have judges run for office opens the door to if not corruption, then the appearance of it. A cursory look at the campaign reports of Migdalia Lopez indicates that some of the contributors are now embroiled in the federal investigation or have themselves been convicted in related cases.

The reports indicate that Lopez received contributions from (convicted) Abel C. Limas on:

1-27-2010 = $750

12-03-2009= $500

From Mitch Chaney (Union Pacific lawyer):

8-05-2009 = $870

From Ray Marchan (also charged in Limas case but has pleaded not guilty):

2-07-2010: $500

7-17-2009= $1,500

From Joe Valle (pleaded guilty in a case involving Limas):

7-17-2009= $1,000

From Marc Rosenthal:

8-05-2009= $2,500