GAMEZ, SAENZ, AND THE FBI's CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION

By Juan Montoya

We ran into local attorney Neto Gamez recently at Carolina's Restaurant on Central Blvd. and couldn't help but notice that he has completely recovered form his near brush with the huesuda in 2008.

Neto was exercising at the TSC gym when he suffered a cardiac event and was kept alive by the availability of a defibrillator kept there for that very reason.

Anyway, we commented on that and on his very first case in federal court way back when he was the defense attorney for a man accused of shooting an alligator at Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge with a bow and arrow. His friends, his cardiologist and a pastor, were enlightened on how he got his client off on the charges, although we're not sure he didn't heap on a bit more crema than we remembered.

The fact of the matter is that Gamez – and we really don't know how – was able to find the hunter who had taken his client's (Luis Liendo) lost arrow and used it to shoot the alligator. Those hunters allowed into the hunt on the refuge had to tape their names on the stem of the arrows for identification.

Anyway, it was good legal work and we told him so way back when.

After mulling it over a bit, we went back in our files and found out that Neto was also one of the few local attorneys who had ever had a federal conviction reversed and vacated involving an informant's deal with the United States Asst. Attorney General in the Southern District.

The case involved on Raymond Castañeda, who had agreed to become a federal informant for the government in return for immunity from prosecution. The case involved the fixing of DWI cases by the Cameron County Disrtrict Attorney's Office through investigator Billy Weaver.

Castañeda was the middle man between those seeking to dismiss or reduce the DWIs and other charges in return for payments to Weaver and himself from the defendants.

Weaver worked at the DA's Office from 1990 through 1994. He worked under DA Luis V. Saenz who was appointed DA by the Cameron County Commissioners' Court in 1990, then elected as District Attorney in 1992, and then served until 1996.

How Weaver made the necessary arrangements with Saenz or other administrators at the DA's Office was never determined, although Weaver did get a 17 month federal sentence as a result. The feds also extended the corruption investigation to target then-sheriff Alex Perez, who was never charged.

The gist of the Castañeda appeal of his conviction in federal district court under the direction of AUSA Mervin Mosbacker was that the government was going back on its word after he had cooperated with them and provided them with information that resulted in indictments and convictions of Weaver and at least eight others involved in the fixing of the cases. Weaver was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in return for testifying against Castañeda.

On the very last day that the grand jury was going to meet, the government contended that Castañeda had deliberately withheld information that breached the agreement,  rescinded the deal and had him indicted on seven charges.

Despite Castañeda – and Gamez's – protests to the court that the government could not rescind the agreement because he had not breached the agreement and had provided substantial performance for them to help them in their prosecution, the district court sentenced him to 33 months in federal prison and three years supervised release.

When Castañeda appealed, Gamez showed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the government's contentions that his client had breached the agreement were groundless.

The court agreed with Gamez and stated that "The government granted Castañeda transactional immunity with the intention of receiving in return leads and information pertinent to its investigation of Weaver and corruption in the Cameron County District Attorney's Office...In fact, Castañeda gave the government significant quantities of detailed information about Weaver's involvement in at least seven illegal transactions conducted through the County Attorney's Office.

"Castañeda's conviction...is reversed, the sentence imposed in accordance with that conviction is vacated, and the case is remanded to the district court for entry of a judgment of acquittal."

Since then, Gamez remains one of the leading attorneys in South Texas, Castañeda has since passed away, and Weaver is living in Central Texas after having served his time. Neither then-Sheriff Perez nor DA Saenz were ever charged. Perez is now content to run his Toddle Inn Restaurant on Central Ave. Saenz is running for reelection as DA.