IS END OF MELINDA GILMAN GONZALEZ CASE IN SIGHT?

By Juan Montoya

It'll be up to Melinda Gilman Gonzalez and her defense attorney Noe Garza to decide whether she will accept a plea bargain offer by the Texas Attorney General's Office on charges of theft by a public servant and the misapplication of her fiduciary duties on values totaling between $1,500 to $20,000.

A grand jury in May 8, 2013, issued the indictments which stated that the theft occurred from March 7 to July 25, 2012.

Officially, Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said that the 32-year-old pocketed at least $7,500 during that five-month period for her own personal use. She was taking the money, Lucio said, from the court costs collections department, in the office of District Clerk Aurora de la Garza.

“When she realized we had a warrant for her arrest, she resigned from the position and she came to the office and turned herself in," Lucio said at the time.

Reports that De la Garza had attempted to run interference for her employee have not been answered.

At the time of her arrest Lucio said that Gilman was allegedly stealing the money when taking manual payments from people who would go pay their court dues, after the electronic system shut down at 4 p.m. Then they would issue hand-written receipts to those paying and keep receipt books without entering the data into the computers.

Since Gilman's stepfather – attorney Peter Gilman – is employed by the DA's office, DA Luis Saenz allowed the Texas Attorney General's Office to prosecute the case.

The TAGO tendered an offer that was to be accepted or rejected by November 12, but court administrators that they had not received a reply from the defendant or her attorney Noe Garza.

TAGO's Asst. AG Steven Todd issued the offer in 445th District Court. Visiting Judge Mari T. Jackson, of Austin, was assigned to hear the case when the 107th and 445th District judges recused themselves because they know and work with Gilman on local cases.

The docket case indicates that Garza and Todd agreed to an order of non-disclosure on the state's discovery, meaning that the state's requests for information from the defendant on personal and other evidence related to the violation will not be disclosed to other parties other than the defense. This effectively keeps any of the findings under wraps.

The file in the case also does not include the details of the offer made by the state or possible punishment or whether Gonzalez's plea included cooperating with the state to determine whether any other District Clerk employees or elected officials took part or knew of the theft of funds from the office.

A clerk in the court said that until Garza emails the court and acceptance or rejection of the offer, there will be no other information available to the public.
 The reason that we have those questions is because during the course of the case through the county, we became aware of an October 12 email from the DA's Office to Bruce Hodge, the commissioners court counsel, that reads:
"Please allow this e-mail to memorialize our phone conversation yesterday, wherein you advised me that the County Auditor was in possession of a statement from a County employee relating to the reported theft of funds from the District Clerk’s Office, which occurred earlier this year. You further advised me that you would ask the Auditor to provide a copy of said statement to the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office, so that it can be made a part of the criminal investigative file."
Who the county employee was, or whether he/she or their memo was available to the TAGO cannot be determined by reviewing the case file.