ROBLES WANTS TO "RESTORE PUBLIC TRUST" IN COURTS

By Juan Montoya
Last night people who went to the Taste of the Frontera bash were astounded to see convicted former administrative assistant Raul Salazar dining with his former boss Pct.2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez and JP 2-2 Erin Hernandez-Garcia at the affair.
Salazar was sitting at the table between them and wearing a Vote for Ernie Hernandez campaign shirt.

Salazar was convicted on two counts of abuse of official capacity and one of tampering with a government document in the illegal hiring of Ernie's brother-in-law (and Erin's uncle) Roberto Cadriel last November.
He was sentenced to 10 months in jail and is appealing his conviction.
During Salazar's trial, the prosecutors acknowledged that there is an ongoing investigation into the commissioner's role in the illegal hiring and he took the Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination and did not testify.
Erin, too, is awaiting an opinion by the Texas Attorney General whether her sale of waivers so that couples can forgo the state-mandated 72-hour waiting period before having a justice of the peace perform the ceremony (for a $250 fee, of course) was legal. Her manufacturing a waiver in her office and then selling it could result in an indictment of a felony crime, if the DA thinks it is warranted.
Both the commissioner and the justice of the peace are running for reelection.
 Likewise, people who do business at the courthouse are astounded when they run into former Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos strutting through the judicial wing and representing clients in the courts. Mando was convicted of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and five counts of extortion, while acquitting him of two other counts of extortion.
The jury convicted on one extortion count involving $200,000 that ex-partner Eduardo Lucio received from a murder case, another count involving paying former state District Judge Abel C. Limas $9,600 to $9,700 to squelch the inquiry into the murder case and five other extortion counts.

He was found not guilty of extortion on a count alleging he received $5,000 in a series of payments for cases and another count  that alleged he extorted attorney Oscar de la Fuente Jr. on seven cases. He, along with convicted former state representative Jim Solis (now serving prison time) were in cahoots with Limas and convicted Austin lawyer Marc G. Rosenthal.
Solis was sentenced to 47 months in federal prison and three years of probation. He was also ordered to pay approximately $119,000 in restitution for his part in the Abel Limas Scandal. He pleaded guilty in 2011 to racketeering charges. He previously testified he gave Judge Limas $250,000 in exchange for favorable rulings.
 Rosenthal was sentenced early December by United States District Judge Andrew Hanen to 20 years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $13,288,984 restitution for his role in the South Texas bribery scheme.
Just a little up the road a bit on US 77 (or I-69 if you believe the hype), the former judge of the County Court-at-Law #3 Daniel Robles is off and running for the position now held by Judge Arturo McDonald, County Court-at-Law #1.

McDonald has never been charged or convicted of any crime linked to the Limas-Solis-Rosenthal scandal and in fact cooperated with the FBI to uncover the crimes.
(That's the Yellow Pages 2010 edition ad for the Solis and Robles, Rosenthal firm on right.)
In a letter to his fellow members of the bar sent on September 23, 2013, Robles says that if elected he intends to "work diligently to help restore the public's trust in the judicial system of Cameron County.
"I am convinced that an improvement must be made in serving all who visit this court...," his letter continues. 
This from a man who quit after 10 years in office in 2010 and then joined forces with Solis and Rosenthal to form a law firm and work the local courts. During the course of the Rosenthal and Solis trials, Robles' name came up often and served as a backdrop to some of the racketeering and bribery schemes hatched by the two attorneys who were his partners after he surrendered his position to go into private practice with them.

"Ya no hay verguenza," said an old man we spoke with last Saturday at a pachanga. "In our days, my dad would tell us that we should never kill or steal least we being dishonor to our family name. Those kind of morals don't seem to exist anymore."