NOT MUCH DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VILLALOBOS AND SAENZ

By Juan Montoya
It has become obvious that even before Thursday's formal announcement that current Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz wants another four years as the top law enforcement officer, his strategy will be based on differentiating himself from his tarnished predecessor.
That's right. As you can see by the campaign graphic atop this page, Saenz gives himself a pat on the back for "Doing a Great Job," with a shiny new DA seal labeled "Now" while depicting a broken dirty DA seal labeled "Then," an apparent dig at convicted former DA Armando Villalobos.
There's something distasteful about kicking a man when he's down and Villalobos is currently serving a 13-year sentence for racketeering and bribery. But we've got to hand it to Team Luis. They don;t miss a chance to point out what they call differences between Villaobos and the new DA in town.
But are the differences real? Or are they basically different sides of the same coin?
Saenz was one of Mando's favorite Special Prosecutors. Someone did a search and found out that Saenz had accrued $100,000s in special prosecutor payments during Villalobos' terms in the DA's office.
Come to think of it. We also remember that Luis served as treasurer for Villalobos in his campaign against Yolanda de Leon. That didn't sit well with the incumbent but Saenz stuck by his guy and Mando won.
So what were some of the differences between Saenz and Villalobos if they were such buddies in the past?

8-Liners

1.Under Villalobos, everyone was making money of the practice of getting them confiscated, buying them back, and taking contributions for his campaign.
  
1. Luis said that he would not sell them buying them back so they could be resold and used again as as Villaobos had. He also painted his opponent  Carlos Masso as a proponent of the devices, and made it a political crusade to rid the county of them. Then it was discovered that Luis – citing environmental problems – had sold 500 for $100,000 with promises to sell more. No one knows where the machines went or whether they ended up being used again. There was some evidence that they ended up in Starr county after he had sold them to a company using Masso as their legal representative.

Use of Special Prosecutor

2. Perhaps the most infamous use of the special prosecutor was Mando's use of a special prosecutor to try former Sheriff Conrado Cantu on charges he was coercing his department's employees to block walk during a mandatory meeting. The special prosecutor basically rolled over and the charges against Conrado were dismissed. That was just the tip of the iceberg. In his federal racketeering trial, numerous cases were cited where money changed hands and cases were dropped or reduced through this stratagem.

2. In the case of Saenz, he appointed a special prosecutor to try the cases of his niece and nephew who were charged with running over a pedestrian, leaving the scene of the accident, and driving while intoxicated. Police charged siblings Kacie and Victor Garcia with leaving the site of the accident after striking 21-year-old Gilbert Perez and fleeing the scene of the accident leaving him critically injured on the side of the road.
In Kacie's case, the DWI and the  Intoxication Assault With a Motor Vehicle were dismissed as part of the plea bargain agreement. She pleaded guilty to the felony charge of Accident Involving Injury or Death. The DA's office  agreed to the dismissal of the two charges and to have Flores sentence her to five years probation and to apply deferred adjudication after that so that the offense would not show up on her record.
In her brother Victor's case, the crackerjack defense also garnered him a dismissal  on the Accident Involving Injury or Death felony charge and his nolo contendre guilty plea on the  Failure to Report Felony Where Severe Bodily Injury or Death Results resulted in Flores going along the agreement between the DA's Office and Stapleton and assessed him 12 months probation and 24 hours of community service. The court also went along with placing Victor with deferred adjudication so that after he served his probation, the record of the offense would be erased.

The politicization of the office

3. When Peter Zavaletta ran against Villalobos he accused him of using the office for political reasons. Zavaletta eventually lost, but the charges only pointed to the gathering storm against Mando that came to the fore once his federal corruption trial began. At the trial, Zavaletta's charges were vindicated and massive corruption favoring Mando's buddies was documented.

3. Luis has had ample opportunity to address the charges of corruption in the handling of his in-law, former District Clerk Aurora de la Garza and Ernie Hernandez and Erin Garcia, his daughter. Joey GArza, Aurora's son, was caught embezzling $100,000 or more from a hospice fund. Joey was given a slap in the hand and allowed to walk and Aurora was never brought before a grand jury.
The FBI and Texas Rangers made available to him evidence pointing to a pattern of chronic mail-in vote fraud and of vote fraud involving adult day care centers by the Ernie-Norma-Erin Hernandez vote-harvesting machine. Saenz stayed away from those cases. He also dropped six official misconduct cases against Ernie Hernandez in the illegal hiring of his brother-in-law. Instead, he approved the offer of deferred adjudication on one coercion of a public official charge and let Ernie walk. Hernandez is said to be planning to run for office this year. Erin, the former Justice of the Peace, 2-2, was caught selling illegal waivers to the state-mandated 72-hour waiting period between the issuance of the marriage license and the ceremony. The case was never presented to the grand jury despite a favorable opinion to the DA's Office from the Texas Attorney General's Office.
Things have a way of biting you in the butt and there are already reports that Ernie, Norma and Erin have pledge to support his opponent Masso and are already recruiting supporters for his cause.
And local blogger Robert Wightman, at one time the DA's cyber megaphone, has now turned against him with bizarre conspiracies involving lawyers, judges, bribes, etc. All of it, of course, is in the hands of the FBI, DOJ, CIA, Interpol, you name it.

Use of Forfeited Funds to reward favored personnel

4. Mando was said to use the funds forfeited from criminal enterprises to reward his favorites in his department. Her also criticized by Saenz for having Public Information Officer Jason Moody when none other departments had one.

4 Upon taking office, Saenz continued the practice, with numerous employee personnel getting paid through the forfeiture funds. He also kept the PIO office open and hired former city commissioner Melissa Zamora after Moody left. No other DA before Villalobos and Saenz has ever had one.

The Amit Livingston murder case

5. Mando let him go for money after he was convicted of murder.

5. Luis can't spend enough to get him back from India despite numerous press conferences and photo ops, the latest one a day before his announcement for reelection.

The last time someone tried the "tarnished badge" strategy to run for office it was Abel Perez when he ran for the sheriff's department. Omar Lucio beat him soundly and that was the last we heard from Abel. It might not be any different with Saenz.