DELIA AND RAMON''S ANNUAL AD FLIER HITS THE STREETS

By Juan Montoya
As predictable as drought in South Texas and the occasional tropical storm, the new issue of the Times of Brownsville has sprouted at local Stripes and convenience stores free for the taking.
Although it bills itself as "un foro bilingue de voces libres," it's anything but. It's really an eight-page tabloid filled with political ads with a couple of professional services like bail bonds (Pronto), tax and financial planners (Otis Powers), and even Mario Villarreal's Pesa maquiladora services thrown in for good measure.
The rest are the ads for candidates that bit the bait and plunked down their bucks to run an ad in the tabloid devoid of any news.
Every election Delia Gonzalez De Leon puts out an edition to snare a couple of extra bucks to add to the household budget. We met Delia a long time ago when she used to trek across the Gateway Bridge to write two or three paragraph notes with Cecilio Cortez (Sexcilio) and Javier Dragustinovis for the Spanish edition Seccion del Valle for El Bravo.
Over time, Jerry McHale talked the Carretero girls (Nancy and Chris) into running an English-language edition and your truly ended up editing it with the budding talents of Anthony Gray (Tony Baloney), Delia and a few others whose names escape me. Delia and Cecilio  only wrote their notes (at $5 a pop), but also didn't pass up an opportunity to sell an ad for the commission. She now writes a column of commentary for the Sunday Bravo edition in her spare time. It's part and parcel of the Mexican border journalist, we guess. Gray went on to become a daily news reporter at the Brownsville Herald and now is an administrative assistant for State Rep. Rene Oliveira.
Well, when she left the daily grind there and went off on her own, Delia got the bright idea come election time of putting out a tabloid. We saw one at the Stripes on Central Boulevard and grabbed it. It's a basic formula, really. Sell all the as space you can, thrown in the "forum of free voice" slogan, and publish it in black and white to milk the enterprise for all its worth until the next election. One thing one has to admit about Delia is that she is indefatigable salesperson and won't take "no" for an answer.
Buyers of the space have a pretty free hand to put whatever they want in the ad. In other words, there is no semblance of editorial control over the contents of the advertising. For example, there is a rather self-serving half-page bought by City Commissioner Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa extolling the virtues of her public service even though she is not running for office this go-round. That ad has the City of Brownsville logo and has no political disclaimer although we believe she is making it quite clear that she will be a candidate when the city elections come around.
Our attention was also caught by the full back-page ad bought by Daniel Robles, the former judge with the County Court-at-Law #3 who is now running for the County Court-at-Law #1 held by Art McDonald and says that "it's time to restore our communities confidence in the judicial system."
This is the judge who quit his position at the court in March 2009 to go into private practice with former State Rep. Jim Solis and Austin attorney Marc Rosenthal. The newspaper coverage at the time indicated that County Judge Carlos Cascos said the commissioners had to seek a replacement pronto because if they didn't "Robles would continue to draw a salary after his resignation was effective."
Well, we all know what happened to the legal triumvirate after that.

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.
It's funny that now Robles cites chapter and verse of his rags to riches story but fails to say that he and his partners once graced the front cover of the Yellow Pages directory distributed all over the Rio Grande Valley.
In a primary and general elections that most observers and pollsters say are turning to be referendum on corruption in public offices, Robles' role in the scandals that have stained the image of the Cameron County courts and bar has come under public scrutiny.
In the back-page ad, he states that "Over the last few years there have been cases in our county courts that have tarnished the judicial system and placed integrity in doubt."
Funny how he fails to mention that on the very first day that McDonald took over as County Court-at-Law #1, Robles sauntered over from County Court-at-Law #3 and told the greenhorn to transfer a case to his court.
That manipulation of the lawsuit Diana Alcala et al vs. Cardinal Health, Inc. et al occurred even after former County Court-in-Law Judge Janet Leal had left the office to take over a district court in January 2007.
 Leal had issued a summary judgement binding the Rosenthal law firm to a $1.5 million settlement for the death of child who was given the wrong medicine. Solis and the Austin attorney had wanted to continue litigation against Cardinal Health-related entities and had entered a motion in the court to for a new trial that was denied by the Leal before she left office in December 2006.
E-mails acquired by government prosecutors and testimony from witnesses during the during the Rosenthal trial indicate that even after Leal had issued a summary judgement, Robles, who was the presiding judge of the courts, transferred the case to his own court and signed a docket entry to that effect. The case should have fallen to McDonald. However, Robles then vacated Leal's order without explanation.
When the defense attorneys learned of the maneuver, they filed a motion to recuse Robles from the case and Judge Manuel Bañales granted the motion. The order Robles had issued for a new trial, however, still remained in effect and the case went as far as the Texas Supreme Court and was settled before the court reached a decision.
Just 14 days after Robles signed the docket sheet transferring the case to his court, he had McDonald make another entry indicating that the case had been transferred at his request. When the FBI came knocking, McDonald denied this and told them that as a new judge, he through the entry was pro forma. Besides, he thought that since Robles was a presiding judge of the courts, he could do it without question.
This is where the ties that bind between Solis, Robles and Rosenthal become plainly evident. In fact, when he was judge of #3, Robles appointed Solis to 173 ad litem cases, an unheard of amount for any attorney from just one court.
During the course of their investigations, the FBI talked with McDonald about the docket entry and then were surprised to learn from Robles' secretary that Solis had used a word processor in Robles' office on January 2007 to type up an affidavit purportedly written by McDonald explaining the events in the case and authorizing the transfer from McDonald to Robles.
In the course of the investigation, the secretary produced a copy of the affidavit – unsigned – that Solis had typed.
The investigation also yielded E-mails between Solis, Robles and Rosenthal that indicated that the three were working in unison to keep the case alive.
Yet, Robles still insisted that McDonald had asked him to transfer the case to his court in the privacy of the court's chambers.  He told the Valley Morning Star's Emma Perez-Treviño that he had transferred the case because he felt it was "in the best interests of justice."
Is Robles serious? Is it possible that county voters have such short memory about his role in the "cases" that have tarnished the judicial system?"
Like we said, the 12th Edition of the Times of Brownsville provides people like Robles an unfettered soapbox to make such noble pronouncements when the truth flies in the face of their claims.