A PARAGON OF VIRTUE, WIGHTMAN WILL SAVE US!

"It is time we fix the Cameron county judicial system."

By Juan Montoya
Who said dat?
Was it the U.S. Dept. of Justice? FBI? The Texas Rangers? The Texas Attorney General? Or the same folks over at the Ass. U.S. Attorney who brought you the Limas-Villalobos-Rosenthal-Solis saga?
Well, no.
It was local blogger Robert Wightman.
And who, ask the folks around the Cameron County Courthouse and the local defense bar, is Wightman?
Who is this champion embracing the highest moral undertaking and embracing this most admirable ethical quest who is ready to roll up his sleeves to save us from ourselves?

Is he an avenging angel? Or the Creator Hisself?
Well, Wightman, or Bobby as his bods call him, is a disbarred lawyer from Dallas (via New York, Nicaragua, etc.) who was kicked out of the legal profession for numerous ethical missteps and violations of the legal code of conduct.
Since he has landed among us, he has sought to paint himself as the paragon of virtue, progress, and defender of human morality and the downtrodden.
Toward that end he has disparaged the reputations and life's work of judges, lawyers, city, county and elected officials, and just regular plain folk he doesn't like, all the while believing that there are vast conspiracies arrayed against him personally, and those he defends from the evil doers.
Who has come under his misplaced wrath?
Well, we don't have the space here, but there a district judges (Migdalia Lopez, Arturo Nelson, Ben Euresti, etc.), county court-at-law judges (Arturo McDonald, David Gonzalez, Laura Betancourt, et al), and a myriad of public officials including, but not limited to, DA Luis Saenz, county commissioners Alex Dominguez and Sofia Benavides, and a host of city commissioners from Cesar de Leon to Mayor Tony Martinez, Rose Gowen, and, just lately, former confidante Jessica Tetreau.
The list goes on. Attorney Louis Sorola and wife JP 2-2 Mary Esther have become his flavor of the day along with attorney Ed Cyganiewicz. Before that, it was Alex Begum (unlike Wightman, a hugely successful attorney) and his mother Yolanda, a candidate for justice of the peace against Wightman's candidate Erin Garcia Hernandez.
And to prove he is an Equal Opportunity Offender, he also landed like a fat tick on the backs of Municipal Judge Ben Neece, federal Judge Andrew Hanen and his mate, and countless other targets of his ire. 
Will it be you tomorrow?  If it is, include the majority of the members of the board of the Brownsville Independent School District and administrators, the board members of  Texas Southmost College, and the Port of Brownsville trustees. Did we leave anyone out from his Hall of Shame?
Long story short, this here Wightman has a history of getting the confidence of his victims and then – when they don't give him the access to the innermost secrets of their entities or their lives – turns on them with a vengeance of a woman scorned.
Ask Tetreau, DA PIO Melissa Zamora, former County Judge Carlos Cascos and his assistant Cris Valadez, Rick Zayas, Otis Powers and Minerva Peña. Among that list is DA Saenz himself as well as a number of his Asst. DA's who made the grievous error of trusting his endearments.
When the various individuals or entities don;t heed his advice, he throws verbal bouquets laced with petals such as "idiots," "morons," "misogynist eunuchs, "vindictive dicks," convicted drunks," "political whores," etc.,
If push comes to shove, there's always the "homophobic" card alleging that his enemies are picking on him because of his alternative sexual orientation.
And if the heat gets unbearable, his hypochondriac card is pulled and he is just about to die from this or that illness that he must rush off to the Veterans Affairs hospital or clinic, elbow out the combat veterans, and have it taken care of. Of course, he knows better than the "idiots" who treat him at government expense. His list of maladies is legendary and range all over his portly bod from polyps in his rectum to problems with his hypothalamus.
This type of behavior goes back to his military service when his commanding officer accused him of malingering because Bobby just happened to be sick when the time came around to pitch in and work with the rest of the platoon.
In fact, the military gave him a honorable discharge based on psychiatric grounds after only a year and a half in the peacetime Army for the good of the service. A psychiatric evaluation concluded that, as written in the Dallas Observer:

"The doctor who performed the evaluation, who Wightman-Cervantes says never examined him, offered this diagnosis in 1982: 'It is my initial impression that the patient manifests a paranoid personality disorder.' After reviewing his medical records, an Army psychiatrist determined that Wightman suffered from "atypical personality disorder (suspiciousness, self-dramatization, overreaction to minor events, angry outbursts, some grandiose ideation)."

It was a diagnosis that has been proven positive by his behavior after that.

When he became a lawyer, after law school, he quickly got himself in hot water and the Texas State Bar. Wightman was disbarred on Jan. 11, 2002 in the the 298th District Court of Dallas County.
The court found that: "Wightman brought or defended a frivolous proceeding. The court also found Wightman took a position that unreasonably increased the costs or other burdens of a case and delayed the resolution of the case. Wightman, in representing a client, engaged in conduct engaged to disrupt a proceeding. Wightman was also found to have communicated with another party regarding a case when he knew that party was represented by counsel. The court also found Wightman made a statement that was either false or with reckless disregard to its truth regarding the qualifications or integrity of a judge."

Sound familiar Cameron County?

Still, he was adamant that he was gong to continue to practice law despite the "morons" of the Texas judiciary or the state bar. He was nailed once again and this time, he could do nothing but confess to his crime (a felony which he pled down to a misdemeanor).

On April 19, 2004, in a judicial confession on a charge of Practicing Law Without a License (Cause: F-0301282), he asserted that:
"I judicially confess to the following facts and agree and stipulate that these facts are true and correct and constitute the evidence in this case:
On the 9th of June A.D., 2003, in Dallas County, Texas., I did intentionally and knowingly then and there, while not licensed to practice law in this state, another state, or a foreign county, and with the intent to obtain an economic benefit for myself, advise Dr. Dan Leong as to the rights of the said Dr. Dan Leong and the advisability of making a claim for property damages, in a legal dispute with Dr. David Stones." 
Wightman had to spend 14 days in jail for the offense. As originally charged, Falsely Holding Oneself Out As a Lawyer, a third-degree felony offense, he could have received 2-10 years confinement in the Texas Corrections System and an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.

But the die had been cast.
Using the formidable arsenal of weapons he created over time, he was able to have his student loans paid by the taxpayers when he got a doctor to sign a statement that he was disabled and a veteran (a disabled vet, get it?) even though he did not meet the hardship eligibility requirements. And even though he likened his case to that of a returning Iraqi veteran his "disability," was never service related.
He claimed that he had no money and was medically disabled so he could have the loans forgiven. In his motion for the discharge of the loans he claimed he hadn't worked in 12 years. A loan analyst with the Dept. of Education said Wightman's earnings disqualified him from having his loans discharged, which triggered the lawsuit. According to Delfin Reyes, Wightman owed the government $40,340 at the time he filed the lawsuit claiming disability and asking to have his loans forgiven even though he earned $17,053 in 2003, which exceeded the poverty guidelines of $12,120.
Nonetheless, Wightman persisted and after more than a year of threats and litigation, the U.S. Dept. of Education threw up its hands and agreed to discharge the $40,000 in student loans had have the U.S. taxpayers foot the bill.

And once he got here, he also had the taxes on his property and his residence reduced by claiming he was a disabled veteran even though – as we stated previously – he spent less than a year and a half in active service and never fired a shot or was nowhere near the battle front.
*Wightman claimed a service-related disability and gets a tax exemption on his $109,000 residence from the Cameron County Appraisal District..

The information request to the CCAD sought the VA disability rating only and the number of the claim, and not any specific private medical information.

The CCAD asked for a Texas Attorney General's opinion on the matter and the AG sided with Wightman on the district's decision to withhold the information from the public. Based on whatever documentation Wightman provided the district, he continues to receive the exemption and allows the rest of the county's taxpayers to shoulder the tax load. Wightman fought the release of any
information tooth and nail ( a pit bull, his brother called him) and labeled the request for the information on his claim an assault on the rights of all veterans.

Nowadays Wightman is writing that he has very little time to undertake too many other causes – like as climate warming, world peace, and clothing optional beaches on Boca Chica. What between the innumerable open records requests he has pending and his legal consulting work there is just no time.
So is it possible that Wightam rehabilitated himself and is no longer ill enough to draw his government dole? Or is he just faking it again? How about revisiting that VA property-
tax reduction claim and disability rating?
Remember, there's still that little niggling matter of fixing the Cameron County judicial system, champ.