By Juan Montoya
As one looks closer at the documented Maquinitagate sale by the Cameron County District Attorney's Office to Lowkes International Inc. and its subsidiaries represented by Carlos Masso and Rick Zayas, it is apparent that someone at that office is mathematically challenged, or was rooked by these gentlemen.
If one divides the number of eight-liners sold to these gents (505), by the price ($100,000), the cost per machine is close to $200 per unit (or $198.0, to be exact).
Operators who ran these arcades tell us that the mother board, plus the machines and other components total some $1,000 per eight-liner, making the $200 price a giveaway at about one-fifth of the price in the open market.
Some are even questioning why the DA's office did not hold auctions, as former DA Armando Villalobos would do.
"You got the good with the bad, but you had a chance to bid for them," said a disgruntled former eight-liner operator. If they were yours, you paid pennies on the dollar to get them back. Luis (Sanez) gave those 500 machines away for pennies to Masso and Zayas."
We stopped by the offices of a commercial tractor trailer transport company to inquire about the cost of carrying the 505 eight-liner machines to Georgia, where the DA's Office was told they would be transported, and found that it costs a pretty penny to move them.
"You're looking at least 20 trailers to haul it to Georgia across state lines," said the owner of the carrier. "That's with a 53-foot trailer attached to the tractor. I estimate that it would cost $2,500 per load, or about $50,000 for the 500. If you add manpower and equipment to load up the machines, that's another $10,000, for a conservative estimate of about $60,000 on top of the $100,000 they paid for the machines."
This calls into serious question the statements that Saenz made to local blogger Robert Wightman that the cost of disposing of the machines was far greater than the value of the machines. Does this mean that the DA's office's intention to sell the machines was true from the beginning?
Since the machines were meant to be destroyed, their "value" should have never been a factor.
Or was it just a matter of political grand standing?
The DA's office has confiscated a whole lot more than 505 machines during the two and one-half years that Operation Bishop has been in effect. Since Saenz has told his cyber megaphone that it costs too much to destroy the, have they also been sold for pennies on the dollar to other buyers who have put them back to work?We have been told that the DA's office trains the Asst. DA's who handle information requests on how not to divulge the information, so filing yet another futile request is a fools errand. This is mere speculation on our part, but we are willing to wager (not on maquinitas, thank you) that those 500 eight-liners are happy and blinking away in some rural South Texas game parlor as we speak.
19 comments:
Rick Zayas and Ruben Cortez were one of the first of the corruption with illegal machine, that is how they made their money to put up for the bid of the comensary they own in CAMERON county, for the inmates.
Another fine upstanding citizen of Brownsville got sworn in today for his State office so that he could begin helping himself! Any guesses?
Just wondering if the curandero's machines are any of the one the DA'S office sold since they are operating without a care in the world.!
Blah blah blah blah....this crap is getting old. Cant you write something interesting. No one cares anymore about the eightliners. Move on to something bigger, cartel, rapists, child molesters!!!! Those are the real criminals.
You know what's interesting, if indeed some or all those machines left the state, it would be FBI jurisdiction. Better yet, if those machines are operating in south Texas but were sold to out-of-state corporations fronted in the Valley by Masso and Zayas...mmm mmm mmmm...Either way, it's FBI territory. Hope Agent Rock Stone is paying attention.
Our Political Entities are all about Stealing .
I'm no financial genius but I know where there’s a debit there needs to be a credit, and vice versa. I may be missing the information, but looking at the county's proposed budget for 2015, I'm concerned there's unaccounted for funds coming into the county then disbursed without a trace of where and how it was spent.
For example, this $100K from the sale of the gambling devices. That should be counted as revenue, should it not? It is, after all, money coming into the county as a direct result of the expenditure of county resources. In other words, the county taxpayer funds the DA's Office as the cost of doing business to have some semblance of law and order in our community. Should the taxpayers not realize a return on its investment when one is generated?
On page 63 of the county’s proposed budget for 2015, one will find the DA’s General Fund budget (Department 475) showing revenue and expenditures. Under revenue there is a list of activities carried out by the DA’s office that generate money and must do so year after year as those sources are assigned revenue codes. Code 4337, DA Food Stamp Prosecutions, for example, actually generated $78,960.44 in 2013, but is budgeted to generate only $3,500 in 2015. That’s fine, because apparently in 2013 and 2014, the DA’s office practically solved the issue of food stamp fraud in our county.
What’s missing from the revenue ledger are recurring “money-generating” activities, like the pre-trial diversion program that generates money year after year from first-time offenders more than willing to hand over money to the DA to avoid a criminal record. It’s kind of like legal extortion to make an offenders troubles go away for a price. There are a few more money-generating activities that the DA’s office utilizes that we learned about during the Villalobos prosecution, but they excape me now. None of them appear as revenue in the budget, though. Not even the $100K for the sale of gambling machines. How is that possible?
How can a county as poor as ours; that struggles with revenue sources year after year to balance the budget, not account for and share in these revenue sources? More disturbing, what is happening to these untold dollars? Who is benefitting – aside from certain employees – and why? Why not the citizens of the county?
Most disturbing of all is the way these machines were sold. Who at the county authorized this sale to two highly visable players in the local legal community without notifying the general public of their availability? As pointed out by Montoya, the machines were sold for less than 5 times their going value because of the way the sale was handled. Who authorized this?! Was this some sort of consolation prize to Zayas for losing the prison commissary contract?
Someone needs to answer for this and some need to be held accountable. The county commissioners need to address this issue of lost revenue and answer to us taxpayers how and why the fruits of the labor funded by taxpayers is not returned to us, instead ending up in the bank accounts of some county employees. I may not be a financial genius but I do know a crime when I see one. One would think that two DA’s and a criminal defense attorney would know, too.
ATTENTION FBI RGV ANTICORRUPTION UNIT!!!! GET TO WORK HERE!!
Hey, 5:10 pm, no bigger story to write than the cartel masquerading as elected officials here in Cameron, raping us poor folks and molesting our laws and justice.
Keep up the good work, JMon!
Has the first honest Mexican been born yet? Really?
Saenz got more than what the machines sell for all over the state when they are auctioned. Average price is $70-$100. The problem is how the money goes directly to his office employees.
Masso sold the maquintas to his nephew..rick Masso. How many people did he represent that were arrested during raids and how many of those ppl got off spot free no charges
Was just passing by the curandero's machines when everyone was racing out of there like a bat out of hell. They must have a good contact because they closed before being hit by the DA'S office.
Again bad math, 80-90 machines fit in a 53 foot truck and Villalobos NEVER auctioned them off. He would work a deal so that the owner of the machines could buy them back while being stored at the same place that was raided.
Joe has better dirt than this Juan. Remember he was Saenz "special" investigator
Has the first honest Gringo been born yet ? Yes. Rick Perry and Dick Cheney, AKA Torquemada.
5:540pm....
We'll never know, will we, the fair market value since the DA never opened them to sale in a fair market. He sold them contrary to policy of the county to two law-practicing stooges. Incredible how lawyers in this county continue to act suspect, undeterred by the former da scandal.
folks let face it luis is part of the problem at Cameron county you know I know that everyone knows, but folks just love him and keep electing him into office, no matter what. that's all folks
You dumb outright Nacos still don't get it! Our NACO D.A. And his crooked lawyers se clavaron la Lana. They pulled a Villalobos quarterback Cowboys end-run .
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