COUPLE SET SIGHTS SQUARELY ON ERIN, NON-SUITS DAD, BRO

By Juan Montoya
As the Cameron County District Attorney's Office gets ready to present evidence to a grand jury on the
issuance of fraudulent waivers being sold out of JP 2-2 Erin Garcia-Hernandez's office, lawyers for a couple who sued her in federal court have focused their aim on her by filing a motion to dismiss her father and brother from their complaint.
The office of Corpus Christi lawyer William J. Tinning filed a motion this morning on behalf of Alberto Maldonado and Claudia Esmeralda Gonzalez in the case styled 1:13-CV-00196 filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville to voluntarily non-suit Cameron County Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez and his son Ernie III. The only defendant now named in tier lawsuit alleging civil right violations resulting from her selling them a waiver to forgo the 72-hour state-mandated waiting period for the wedding ceremony is the JP Erin Garcia-Hernandez.
Commissioner Hernandez had been named in the lawsuit because of the supervisory role of his position to oversee the performance of county employees. Ernie II was named because he sold the elected official performance bond to his sister.
The couple alleged in their original complaint that the use of the fraudulent waiver had already delayed their application for residency with the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship department. They asked the court to prevent the service from rejecting their residency application based on the use of the fraudulent waiver and to order the justice of the peace from issuing any more of the waivers.
Efforts to contact Tinning and local counsel Luis Sorola have been unsuccessful.

Reports indicate that the Cameron County commissioners legal counsel had instructed all the justices of the peaces in the county not to issue any of the waiver.
The Texas Family Code (2008) states that only with a judge of family law cases, a justice of the supreme court, a judge of the court of family appeals, a county judge, or a court of appeals can issue a 72-hour waiver.
Up to now, it has come to light that she sold these waivers to from 13 to 17 couples at $40 each and married them the same day for her $250 marriage ceremony fee. In the established waiver process in the district court, the application is sent to a district judge, a $237 fee is paid to the clerk's office, and once signed, the the waiver is assigned a file in the record. (See real waiver at left.)
By manufacturing her own "waiver" form, the county was out $237 per waiver. So far, no other justice of the peace form has been unearthed that shows anyone else issued and signed similar in-house forms or collected the $40.
Courtroom watcher say that there has been a procession of county justices of the peace trekking to the DA's office. Sources say that at the core of the questioning there has been whether they issue such waivers.
So far, the only documented evidence of any justice of the peace formatting a "waiver" from her court has been Garcia-Hernandez. Her form, obviously manufactured in-house, bears her letterhead and her signature on the bottom. This is markedly different than the one issued by the Cameron County District Court.
The Texas Penal Code in Section 37.10 (Tampering with Governmental Record), (a) 2 states: A person commits an offense if he:
(2) makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record.
Then, it states two lines later:
(4) possesses, sells, or offers to sell a governmental record or blank governmental record form with intent that it be used unlawfully;
(5) makes, presents, or uses a governmental record with knowledge of its falsity; or
(6) possesses, sells, or offers to sell a governmental record or blank document record form with knowledge that it was obtained unlawfully.
The Penal Code states that "if the actor's intent is to defraud another, ...the offense is a state jail felony.
The offense becomes a felony of the third degree if "the actor's intent in committing the offense was to defraud or harm another."
The Erin Garcia-Saga continues. Which shoe will fall first, the case in federal court, or the one in the state grand jury chambers?