IN DEFENSE OF VILLALOBOS: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

By Juan Montoya
The ink has yet to dry on the federal indictment of Cameron County District Attorney (and congressional candidate) Armando Villalobos and already the sanctimonious among us are yelping about paying his legal fees for his defense.
Let's see if we go this straight.
Villalobos, as a county district attorney, allegedly committed these acts that might (or might not) turn out to be illegal or criminal. In fact, the federal indictment is based on the fact that he was acting in his official capacity when he allegedly committed the acts named in the 12-count indictment.
Nobody at this point knows if he is guilty or not. And we're sure that Mandos' defense will make every effort to prove that their client is innocent.
Until Villalobos is found guilty or pleads to one or any of the counts, he remains as innocent as you or me. About the only person who stated this among the candidates to the 34th Congressional District was Paul Haring, the one-issue (anti-abortion) candidate with a zilch chance of merging as the GOP nominee.
"He is innocent until proven guilty," he said if we are to believe the local daily whose high priestess editor and prima donna reporters were still smarting for being "slighted" at a recent Villalobos press conference. The Herald wanted five of its staff admitted to the conference and Villalobos would only allow three. Good for him. It ain't a Whitewings game, guys.
County commissioner David Garza was perhaps the most sanctimonious of them all. He has not only made up his mind about the DA's guilt, but he said – as a Supreme Court justice once said about pornography – "I know it when I see it."
He even wants the daughter of Villalobos' defense attorney, Stephanie Rollins, not be hired under contract because he feels he would be an "accomplice" to some unspecified crime that he has concocted in his mind. She has been working at the DA's office for the last two years and Garza had no problem with that. Why now? What does this woman's employment (and her household's livelihood) have anything to do with her boss' legal problems?
Garza apparently has already made up his mind about Villalobos' guilt. God forbid he ever gets on a jury where one of us is charged.
One of his Democratic opponents (Juan Angel Guerra) who has a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected, has gone as far as to file a petition to remove Villalobos as DA. Doesn't he remember when he himself was removed from office on bogus charges filed by his political opponents when he was a DA in Willacy County? You remember the theatrics he pulled. He setup a desk outside the courthouse complete with goats and chickens to call attention to his plight.
Those charges against him, by the way, were later dismissed. Now he wants to remove Villalobos just as he was locked out of his elective office. History, we are told, repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce.
As Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos said: "We're not going down that path."
While we're at it, why not withdraw the legal representation for the four Brownsville Independent School District trustees (Ruben Cortez, Rick Zayas, Rolando Aguilar and Joe Colunga) who have been charged in lawsuits filed in state and federal court with conspiring to violate the civil rights of the former Chief Financial Officer Tony Juarez, former Superintendent Hector Gonzales, and former Special Needs Department Director Art Rendon?
As a part of the Juarez lawsuit, they are also charged with conspiring to rig the Stop-Loss insurance contract for the district so their long-time political benefactor Johnny Cavazos could get the business. The lawsuit alleges that they retaliated against the defendants and used the district's grievance process to play one district employee against another to justify their termination.
These lawsuit have been ongoing for the best part of two years and their defense has cost not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where's the outrage there? The current board majority, rather than dragging out the case and enriching lawyers, chose to cut its losses and settle with Rendon.
In the other two cases, the legal cost to defend the four trustees are still being paid for by the district, and, indirectly, the taxpayer.
And what of police officers who are charged with wrongful death and later are convicted? Shall they, too, have been denied legal representation by the entities they represent because someone reached the conclusion before their trial that they must be guilty?
What's it going to take? Will Villalobos have to sue the commissioners court and ask for a Texas Attorney General opinion to have the defense he is almost certainly entitled to have?
Where will this lead? If the commissioners deny Villalobos the legal defense that he, as an elected official performing his duties, incurred those charges while in that role, will they then waste the taxpayers' dollars trying to deny him that defense?