RECKONING HERE FOR CITY CONTRACT ATTORNEY MARK SOSSI

By Juan Montoya
He is reported to have had the IRS slap a I.R.S.  $100,000 tax lien on him,,  has been repaying a $167,363 settlement to  Willette & Guerra, his old law firm, has sued twice for legal malpractice, has been accused of underpaying the Texas Workforce Commission unemployment fees of $20,711.66, and is under the gun to produce a code of ethics for the City of Brownsville.
Now city contract attorney, who earns $120,000 ($10,000 a month) to give the city commission legal advice    and another $5,000 ($60,000) to provide like services to the the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC), making a total $180,000 annually from both has been brought up before a local court because he hasn't paid yet another settlement.
Visiting Judge Menton Murray has scheduled the hearing on a motion by a plaintiff in one of the malpractice lawsuits for 9 a.m. Jan. 31 (Thursday) at the 357th District Court formerly presided by Judge Leonel Alejandro.
Sossi – represented by his attorney and former city commissioner Anthony Troiani – will answer before  Murray why he hasn't complied with a settlement he reached at mediation with Jesus A. Abete.
Sossi agreed to a pay a settlement for an undisclosed sum of money to Abete, a  former Oliveira Middle School math teacher and soccer coach who sued him for legal malpractice last February.
Abete claims that Sossi failed to pay him as he agreed to after mediation.
Abete's filed a motion through his attorney Peter Zavaletta for the court to  declare the settlement agreement void for nonpayment. He also wants the court to release him from a bond of confidentiality that would allow for him to make public the details of the settlement.
Abete, through his attorney Peter Zavaletta, sued Sossi for breach of contract and legal malpractice and claimed in his lawsuit that he "duly signed a contract" with Sossi and to represent him to recover legal damages sustained as a result of the accident. Abete also claims that Sossi represented to him that the case was timely filed in court.
"In the ensuing months, (Sossi) repeatedly lied to (Abete), and misrepresented the true facts of the underlying lawsuit to (him).
"The truth is that (Sossi) never filed suit on behalf of Abete, and by law, suit had to be filed before the statute of limitations expired. The statute of limitations is two years from the date of the accident (January 2, 2009) Jan. 8, 2011. If the suit was not filed by then, (Abete's) rights would have been forever extinguished," the lawsuit states.
"(Sossi) failed to file (Abete's) suit," it continues. "Now that the statute of limitations has expired, (Abete) is forever barred from recovering damages for the serious personal injuries he suffered in the (crash).
The court ordered the parties to mediate, and appointed Reynaldo Garza, Jr. as Mediator. The mediation was held at Mr. Garza’s office on or about September 27, 2012. The parties agreed to settle this matter, and signed a written settlement agreement prepared by the mediator.
Courthouse observers say that the speed in which the motion to force Sossi to comply with the mediation agreement with Abete is noteworthy since the courts have been traditionally (and notoriously) slow in assigning and hearing motions of settlement agreements.
"Things are really happening fast on this one," said one. "But there are no facts to argue, really. Sossi agreed to pay and now the plaintiff is saying he hasn't."
In the case of the $167,363 Sossi owed Willette & Guerra, some city watchdogs charged that Sossi had been steering city work to that firm since he became the city's contract attorney and suspected that he was doling our legal work to the firm as a way to pay back his obligation.
Argelia Miller wrote to City Mayor Tony Martinez questioning the ability of Sossi to steer work to the firm to which he was indebted.

Miller told him she was concerned that Sossi had let out city-paid contracts to Willette and Guerra LLP, "a firm that had sued him and won a judgement of $167,000. He took money that belonged to the firm...and was sued and lost...

"At the time I wrote the letter," Miller continues, "he had given Willette & Guerra city contracts in excess of $37,000. Now in 2011, records indicate he has given them contracts for over $75,000 from January to March 2011."

Miller wrote Martinez that it was hard for her and others to understand how Sossi "could favor a firm that sued him and that he owed $167,929 to as of 8-09-2009. It is also hard to understand how the city of Brownsville allows this arrangement."
Obviously, Sossi cannot dole out city-paid services to Abete to offset his settlement with him. It'll be interesting to see what former city commissioner Troiani can fix for his apparently strapped-for-cash former counselor at City Hall and whether he will be paid in cold hard cash or in some other kind of way.