BLOWS START IN THE ELIA VS LIMAS, SOLIS, GAVITO ET AL SUIT

By Juan Montoya
Don't say we didn't warn you.
A few days ago we posted the story on 404th District Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez's lawsuit where she charged the principals in the Abel Limas-related corruption cases with libel, slander and defamation against her.
Limas, Jim Solis, Marc Rosenthal and even former Port of Brownsville Police Chief George Gavito are named in the lawsuit that also includes Limas’wife Genevieve and their son Abel Limas Jr. She charges that in the course of their illegal activities, the defendants libeled and slandered her.
Her lawsuit does not specify the false statements that the defendants are alleged to have made, so we assume that they are in the contents of "the 40,000-plus recorded telephone conversations (of) all of the actions of defendants against Lopez, specifically, but not limited to slander, defamation and libel, loss of reputation and embarrassment.”
Well, no sooner had our post gone out into the blogosphere that someone reminded us of the newspaper ad wars that Limas and Cornejo-Lopez waged against each other when they were in contention for the position. It has been out experience that of all the races for positions that we have watched in Cameron County, by far the most contentious have been those for judicial and law enforcement posts.
Is this because they – as law enforcement types and barristers – are privy to information that is generally inaccessible to the general public?
Elia made mincemeat out of Limas with her campaign ads outlining his role in the release of convicted murderer Amit Livingston. When the case against former Cameron County DA Armando Villalobos played out in court, it turned into a general frenzy of finger-pointing as Limas and Mando tried to blame each other for the killer's release for 60 days to "get his things in order" before serving his 23-year prison sentence. That is still not over now that Mando's former law partner Eddie Lucio is having his day in court in Corpus Christi for his role in the civil suit against Livingston tat netted him $200,000 and Mando he feds say – an $80,000 kickback.
But we digress.
One of our readers recalled when Limas – no lightweight in the cutting newspaper ad game, published the ad above accusing Elia of abusing the rights and disrespecting a mentally-impaired minor defendant when he appeared before her in court.
Quoting from the transcripts of the July 1999 trial of the defendant, Cornejo-Lopez is skeptical about the teen's defense that he is mentally ill and browbeats him saying:
"I'm real skeptical about the MHMR (Mental Health/Mental Retardation) thing. Look at me when I talk to you. Now I think in life you have used this as a crutch because you are not mentally retarded. You do not have any of the signs. You do not have low ears. You eyes are not wide apart...and you can play this little role when you walk with your head down low and you don't know what the heck is going on but you do, right? You do know what's going on."
The teen's defense attorney then cut in and made a motion to have the defendant psycho evaluated and Elia denied the motion on the spot.
In the ad, Limas went on to say that a year before the defendant came before the court,he was attending classes at MHMR and a year later, in 2001, a jury found him incompetent to stand trial.
Limas then moves in for the kill telling the readers that unlike Elia, he has "treated all persons who came before (him) with respect" and cites a poll by the Cameron County Bar Association favoring him 78 to 21 percent.
Well, in light of everything that has come afterwards, we can now afford to be skeptiocal about that in retrospect.
However, things did get down and dirty between the two every time they ran for the same position. We can just imagine what's going to come out in the trial if it ever gets to that point. Abel Limas Jr. has already filed a response denying the charges in Cornejo-Lopez's lawsuit, a sort of pro forma response in these cases. When Solis, Limas Sr., Gavito, Rosenthal, and the others respond and call for discovery, the genie will surely be let out of the lamp.