DOCUMENTS IN BRIBERY CASES BARE CORRUPT JP COURTS

By Juan Montoya
Documents filed in the bribery cases that occurred when Erin Garcia Hernandez was Pct. 2-Pl.2 Justice of the Peace reveal a far-reaching system of case-fixing, destruction of documents and influence-peddling that spilled over into a neighboring JP court.
They also hint that Garcia was aware of the payment arrangements and participated until former Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos, then under indictment for racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and five counts of extortion, appeared on the scene on behalf of a defendant in a small claims case in her court on April 2013.
A little more than a month later, on May 24, 2013, a jury convicted him of these charges.
The cases involve one specific arrangement where a couple – through Maria Velia Silguero, the sister of Liliana Cantu, Garcia's court clerk – were asked for $800 for a favorable ruling on a case against a relative.
Jaime and Vanessa Mercado (AKA Weaver) had filed a small claims against Griselda Mercado, in a dispute over money.
The couple was under the impression that payments they had made on a $800 "arrangement" through Silguero and her sister Cantu would guarantee them a favorable judgement against Griselda Mercado, only to find out that Garcia – after having taken about $400 in separate payments – backed out of the agreement after Villalobos appeared on the scene following a judgement she had made on their behalf.
Instead, Garcia overturned her judgement on behalf of Jaime and Vanessa Mercado and issued a default judgment on behalf of Griselda Mercado, Villalobos' client.
Among the documents filed in the bribery case against Silguero by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz is a translation of a tape recording made by the Mercados (Vanessa Mercado hid the tape recorder in her bosom) in a 15 minute, 45 second conversation with Silguero where they are demanding to know why the court did not live up to the arrangement. The translation was filed on April 1, 2015. In one section, the two women recall the beginning:

VELIA: "Let's recall all the data from the beginning of all this problem. Ever since it started, she (JP Garcia) was in agreement because they were told you all were her (Liliana Cantu's) family, and she said yes, and there was a way to help you all. The whole problem was told to her just the way you all told us. And didn't she tell you there how to file the petition, and what she was going to do an everything? The Liliana said, when they told us how much it was going to be...You remember that?
VANESSA: "Eight hundred."
VELIA: "That we must pay them in full."
VANESSA: "But in the beginning they did not tell me that in full."

VANESSA: "So then Jaime asks me, 'Hey dude, so then ask Velia, I mean, what is going on, dude? Was the money given to her? Was it not given to her? I mean, what happened? Why does the judge..."
VELIA: "From the very beginning she said yes when we talked to her and I told you, 'Yes, she is in agreement with that...' but she wanted the money all together, and I told you."

VELIA: "Then we tried giving her half or a part, because aside from that, you were giving it in payments, friend. You gave one hundred and fifty, and then I don't remember if you gave another hundred and fifty and thst is how you went along. She was not going to take that from me...When the first time you won that she said you all had already won..."

Following her issuing of the judgement on behalf of the Mercados ordering Griselda Mercado to pay them $5,486, April 3, the court was contacted by former DA Villalobos the very next day who said he had not been notified of the order setting the hearing and asked for it to be reset.
That apparently caused Garcia to reconsider and the recording alludes to that:

VELIA: "The first conversation we had, I told you the money was in full. Then when the...whe we went to talk to her, that I gave Liliana the money because she was no longer going to talk to me...the judge. The judge no longer wanted to. When she found out the attorney was Villalobos, she no longer wanted to. After the first hearing that you all had already won because the other side didn't show up, and then Villalobos was sending her letters, she no longer wanted to take the money. The money stayed in a file underneath a drawer which Liliana showed me."

The Mercados money was apparently mixed in and left with money that was being gathered from sales of BBQ tickets for a Garcia fundraiser, partly as a way to distance Garcia from the scheme and to giver he a plausible denial that she knew anything about the arrangement.
With Garcia backing out of the deal, Cantu apparently had no other recourse but to give extensions hoping Villalobos' legal woes would remove him from the scene. Her sister tells Vaness Mercado in the tape:

VELIA: The only ting Liliana was doing was giving extensions and more extensions pushing the courts to see if this fucking idiot (Villalobos) would remove (lose) his license because the judge no longer wanted to help out. In other words, she no longer wanted to charge. She was going to help (Villalobos) on her own behalf...without charging..."
VANESSA: "She told me if I would have shown up this morning or not, she was still going to take their side."

After the Mercado's arrangement with the JP court blew up in their face, Garcia apparently took umbrage that she had been implicated in the scheme and turned on Cantu. Her sister tells Vanessa Mercado that after not talking to her for three weeks, Liliana called her repeatedly.

VELIA: "She has been calling me, and calling me, and calling me, and calling me, and calling me, and calling me, and everything. All day long because she is really scared because she is gong to lose her job, and that I am also going down because they want to send the investigators over to me."
VANESSA: "They cannot do shit to you.
VELIA: "And right now I tore all the documents I had on people."

Velia Silguero also told Vanessa Mercado that the "problem" caused with the small claims lawsuit also resulted in Garcia becoming angry with Cantu and said that Garcia called her sister into a meeting where she tore up a recommendation for then-357th District Judge Leonel Alejandro's court.

"VELIA: "That's because...she had applied for a higher court with Leonel Alejandro and the judge (Garcia) was going to make her a recommendation letter, and she tore it up in front of her face, and she called her in to talk to her, and that she had told her what she was doing taking money for herself. She said, "No...That Liliana had said, "No I did not take money. She said, "I told them that if I was able to, I was going to help them because they are my family members, but I did not take money from them...She said, "No, that they are going to open up an investigation, and the judge is really mad at me, and I have a meeting on Thursday, and they are going to fire me, and it is all your fault..."      

Silguero also alerted JP 2-1 court clerk Cynthia Rodriguez, then in JP Linda Salazar's court, to come to her home and retrieve some of that court's documents in case law enforcement searched her house.

VELIA: "And I told Cynthia, 'Cynthia, I have some of your documents here.' I said, 'Yours and your boss's.' I told her, 'I need to turn them in to you because if any kind of officer shows up or something, well I have to tear up everything I have here at the house. Because why do I have...? Why do I have documents belonging to other people? Why? What explanation regarding the documents am I going to have for so and so that comes from the city police or that comes from the courthouse? 
VANESSA: "Well, if you would like I can take Cynthia's or I can give them to the other idiot (Sylvia Rodriguez, Cynthia's sister-in-law).
VELIA: "I am going to turn them in to her. I need to give them to her in my house. Which I do not even feel like doing."

The bribery cases against Vanessa Mercado, Liliana Cantu and Velia Silguero will be heard Monday, April 20 before 103 District Judge Janet Leal.