FOR SAENZ, POLITICS GO HAND IN HAND WITH PUBLIC OFFICE

By Juan Montoya
Remember when the the Brownsville Police Dept., the FBI, Cameron District Attorney's Office and state agencies were investigating Justice of the Peace 2-2 Erin Garcia Hernandez for her involvement in cash for favorable rulings in small claims court?
Even though at least three clerks and a family member of a clerk told investigators that – aside from the fixing of a case – the county employees at her office were competing with each other to sell tickets fro a BBQ fundraiser for her.
They were not only selling the fundraisers tickets with the approval of Garcia , but were also collecting money and holding it for her during their working hours at the courthouse.
Garcia was never indicted for the alleged fixing of the Mercado case, but also was never sanctioned or charged wirth official misconduct under the Texas Penal Codee for allowing and encouraging the sale of her political-function tickets.
Instead, the clerks and the women were charged with trying to bribe a public official and tampering with government documents.
One of our five readers mentione dto us that this is not the first time that DA Luis V. Saenz has had the opportunity to nip this type of official misconduct in the bud and refused to prosecute. Our reader guided us to the case reported by Brownsville Herald's Elizabeth Allen way back in December 1993 during the first Saenz stint as the county's lead prosecutor.
In that case, Allen reported that employees at former Cameron County District Clerk Aurora de la Garza were told to sell tickets for her upcoming political fundraiser. The workers  also told Allen that de la Garza's chief aide Rosie Sotelo had given each full-time employee 30 tickets to sell and part-timers 10 tickets to sell,
In each case, the women were willing to speak with prosecutors at Saenz's office if required.
However, even after the Herald reached out to Saenz for his opinion on the matter and their calls were never answered and the issue remained the same.
The politicizing and selectivity of prosecution has always been a Saenz trademark.
Take for example, the case of Pct. 2 Cameron County commissioner Ernie Hernandez (Erin's dad). He was charged with seven counts of official misconduct for his role in the illegal hiring of his brother-in-law Robert Cadriel even though he was a convicted felon and failed the civil service examination twice. On the last try, he was given the answers by Hernandez's Administrative Asst. Raul Salazar. Salazar was convicted of tampering with a government document and is facing a 10-month jail sentence once his case has been turned down by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. It has already been turned down by the 13th Court of Criminal Appeals.
The way the prosecution proceeded in this case shows that, in return for Hernandez's plea to one count of coercion of a public official, Saenz agreed to dismiss the seven official misconduct charges and allowed Hernandez to accept deferred adjudication and serve probation for a year.
That year is up and now Hernandez can run for office since the charges has been erased from his record.
And the cases involving his nephew and niece Kacie and Victor Garcia who ran over a man on the highway while DWI and left him on the side of the road also ended fairly well for the pair.
In that  case , 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 a visiting judge 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.
And of course, who can forget that Sanez did nothing to alter the outcome of the case involving Aurora's son Joey, for stealing morre than $80,000 from the Sunshine Haven Hospice in Olmito? He didn't even spend one night in jail and was seen in one afternoon at the court of...Abel Limas. Saenz's old boss Armando Villalobos approved the deal.
How things change and still remain the same.
Now that Saenz has decided to look a second time at cold cases, this one might fit the bill nicely. Don;t hold your breath, though.