PAT AHUMADA'S BEST FRIEND MAY BE HIS WORST

By Juan Montoya

The Pat Ahumada Chronicles just reached another saga.

Ahumada, a former mayor and one of our favorite Brownsville denizens, has been able to convince the city voters to elect him to the top municipal position not one, but twice in his political career.

Then, when he decided to run for congress as a Republican, the political atmosphere wasn't ready for him and he went on to other pursuits.

When he left the mayorship this last time he wen ton to establish a "sweepstakes" game room that started out slowly but soon gathered quite a following. His charity of choice that is required by the laws regulating such establishments was PAWS (Pet Advocates With Solutions), an organization dedicated to helping stray animals and encouraging their adoption.

However, his entry into the gray area of sweepstakes clashed with Operation Bishop, a combined federal, state, county and city effort to stop illegal gambling in places where there were "maquinitas."

Pat and his attorneys claimed that sweepstakes were not maquinitas, but rather computerized games that allowed the players to redeem money prizes totally unrelated to gambling.

The lawmen didn't buy it and they raided Pat's Goldmine 777 right at the most visible corner os US 77-83 frontage and Price Roads.

Cameron County DA Luis Saenz had said before that the move against the maquinita establishments would be carried out to its last consequences and the fact that Ahumada and others made semantic distinctions about it didn't change the fact that they were paying out cash disbursements over $5 against state law.

The latest court hearing in Ahumada's case has a visiting judge ordering the forfeiture of $50,000 in computer equipment, other miscellaneous property and $2,848.69 in currency seized during the raid at Pat's place of business.

Ahumada then told the local daily and local broadcasters that he may appeal of the ruling.
“This is a case that’s going to have to go through the appeals process,” he said,.

citing his attorney’s argument that the court didn’t have jurisdiction to rule on the case.
“We feel the charges against me are improper and have no merit.”
He continued to insist, as he has done in the past, that the seizure of his property and his arrest in May was due to a personal vendetta against him by Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz. Saenz's investigators also took part the raid against the Goldmine 777. 

"It’s clear that I was singled out,” Ahumada asserted.
That is the same thing he said when city authorities made him get rid of a large number of dogs at his home after they cited an ordinance that prohibited anyone to have more than three dogs in a residence. And it's the same thing he said when he was charged with depositing a $26,000 check made out to a city vendor into his personal bank account. Saenz was the special prosecutors in the check case.

A jury eventually found him not guilty after a trial. 

Who knows, there may be some merit to his claims, politics being what it is in Cameron County. But is it any coincidence that a gun is more likely to be pointed at someone who paints a bull's eye on his back than at someone who does not?

I many ways, our friend Ahumada may have turned out to be his own worst enemy.