AT SONIA SOLIS SENTENCE: FEDS' REPORT YIELDS NAMES, CONFIRMS VOTER FRAUD INVESTIGATION ONGOING

By Juan Montoya
During the Sonia Solis sentencing, Asst. U.S. Attorney William Hagen pressed for a 12-month prison sentence and relied on the pre-sentencing report indicating that the federal guidelines allowed judge Hilda Tagle to impose it on her.
Tagle, citing her concerns that Solis was "a little cog in a very big wheel," instead imposed a six-month sentence of home confinement where she would have to wear a GPS device and five years of probation after that. She also said she had concerns about her health.
But it was while Solis' defense attorney (and former Cameron County District Attorney) Ray Cantu objected to the narrative outlining the context of his client's actions that gave a glimpse into broadening investigation that includes numerous politiqueras and elected officials that caught listener's ears.
Cantu objected to the presentence narrative that indicated that federal authorities reported it was the investigative work of JP 2-2 candidate YTB (Yolanda Teran Begum), her associates, and Citizens Against Voter Abuse activist Mary Helen Flores that triggered the federal investigation. A detailed statistical work on the mail-in vote was performed by Laura Miniel, working for Begum.
Begum first went to the FBI after several women (politiquereas) sought her out and promised her to haul in elderly voters or deliver mail-in votes on her behalf for $125 a week. She said she had refused.
Cantu said that the fact that there were "many more  people included in this and this has been going on for many years...This is normal in Brownsville and in the Valley."
Investigators' report noted that Solis had told them that before the runoff election where Begum was facing  Erin Hernandez Garcia (Pct. 2 commissioner Ernie Hernandez), she had been invited to meet with "TC, HB, NH and MO at EH's business where she was told who to vote for and TC showed her how."
Based on those initials, it is obvious that Solis met with Tomasita Chavez, Herminia Becerra, Norma Hernandez and Margarita Ozuna" at Fiesta Graphics, which is owned by the Hernandezes.
Hagen said Solis than picked five members of her family, including her son, and then filled out mail-in applications and forged their signatures.
At the time of her sentencing, she sat demurely on the second row of benches at the right hand side of the courtroom. Nondescript and wearing a dark blazer over a black and white striped skirt, she could have been mistaken for any other Mexican-American middle aged woman on the streets of Brownsville.

This is the first time that federal investigators have showed their hand or confirmed that the investigation has broadened to include the four politiqueras. Norma Hernandez is the wife of Ernie Hernandez and the mother of Erin Hernandez Garcia. Both were defeated in the 2014 primary last month.
Begum is facing Johnathan Gracia in the May 27 Democratic party runoff.
After the 2012 runoff for JP, the CAVA and Begum workers' suspicions were piqued when they discovered that five people lived at the same address in Shidler Drive that Solis had written down and where she claimed she had assisted them with their votes. Begum and CAVA volunteers sought out the apartment and learned that even though they were claiming disability, the apartment had only one bedroom on the second floor.
During the course of the group's probe, an interview with the manager of the apartment complex indicted that only two people lived in the apartment in question and that seven people could not have lived there.
"If they were disabled, how could they go up an down the stairs," he told them.
Hagen wanted the court to impose a 12-month sentence because even as Solis maintained that she had gained no benefit from casting the five illegal votes, she also had use of a car that was made available to her that was registered to one AG (Abel Gomez?) that she had used for months after the election.
"There was no dollar mount,: Hagen said. "But the vote is sacred and is the cornerstone of our democracy. This court needs to send a strong message...and create a general deterrence for the future..."
Although Solis and her attorney had claimed that she was suffering from cancer and argued for a probated sentence, neither could produce medical evidence for the disease. Solis said she had surgery for cancer in August of 2013 and that she had returned for a follow-up in February. However, both Cantu and Solis agreed that the surgery had been "successful" and that no cancer had been detected.
 But if Cantu and Solis expected Tagle to believe that the defendant didn't know that casting illegal votes were wrong, she quickly disabused them of that idea.
"A vote is sacred," she agreed with Hagen. "(You) are asking me to indulge in a fantasy...I can't accept that she didn't know it was wrong. It is a nasty and reprehensible business. Until and when others... who participated on a much greater basis (and) who have escaped prosecution to date (are prosecuted by the government), I believe she is a she is a small cog in a very large wheel. She is a small part in a much bigger operation."
Hagen, for his part, refused to disclose any further details on the individuals involved who might be targets of the government probe.
"I don't want to comment on an active investigation..." he said.