FAKE CAR TITLE CASES LANGUISH AT MAGISTRATE COURT

By Juan Montoya
In the wake of the arest of Cameron County Tax Assessor Collector Tony Yzaguirre and three staff members based on an information that alleged Yzaguiree had accepted bribes from a  confidential informant last September, a review of magistrate computer files reveals that another case involving at least eight fake car titles and forgery has languished in that court since last August.
Yzaguirre, his Auto Theft Task Force chief Jose Mireles, Sgt. Pedro Garza and tax office worker Omar Sanchez-Paz were arrested January 6 and charged with various crimes before a magistrate.
Yzaguirre was charged with four counts of bribery, a second-degree felony, engaging in organized criminal activity, a first-degree felony, and official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.
Mireles was charged with bribery, a second-degree felony, engaging in organized criminal activity, a first-degree felony, and official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.
Garza was charged with bribery, a second-degree felony, engaging in organized criminal activity, a first-degree felony, and official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.
Omar Sanchez-Paz, who was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, a first-degree felony, and abuse of official capacity, a Class A misdemeanor.
And while Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz moves to convince Magistrate Alfredo Padilla to revoke the men's personal recognizance bonds and place a $50,000 cash bond on them instead, the he has failed to present evidence to a grand jury and indict the defendant in the previous cases dating back to last August.
The motion to revoke Yzaguirre and the three other defendants' bonds will be heard by Padilla at 3 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, in the 138th District Court.
In his response to the Saenz motion to revoke the bonds, former District Judge Robert Garza, representing Yzaguirre, has already objected to the revocation and wants to know why the case against his client was not presented to a grand jury.
The four have not been indicted by a grand jury as Texas law requires.
Texas law requires that defendants have their first court appearance within 48 hours of their arrest where the prosecutor must file an information on misdemeanor cases but must go to a grand jury on felony charges.

On a misdemeanor charge, the prosecutor will file an information, the official charging document describing the crime the state alleges you committed. For felony charges, Article I, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution requires prosecutors to go to the grand jury to seek an indictment before officially filing criminal charges.

Defendants' counsel may try to end the case right there by presenting a written argument against the criminal charges to the grand jury. In some extreme cases, they might even ask that their clients be allowed to testify in front of the grand jury. However, it is unlikely to avoid an indictment when the case goes to a grand jury.

Witnesses who have seen Saenz's petition say the document covers all of 10 pages and relied heavily on the fact that Yzaguirre, the lawmen, and the tax office clerk violated a public trust and therefore must be held to a higher standard than the common criminal. He also said that the proximity of Cameron County to the U.S.-Mexico border increased the risk of flight.

However, the men's attorneys have already filed their answer to Saenz's motion through Padilla's office and dispute those assertions.

"Tony is here. So is Mireles, Garza and Sanchez-Paz," said a local attorney. "They're not going anywhere. Saenz is just mad that his publicity stunt didn't go like he wanted it to."
In the existing case, the defendant, 59-year-old Melquides Sosa, came before Padilla last August 28, 2015 and was charged with eight counts of tampering with a government document and one count of False Name, Info Forgery Vehicle Registration.
The Texas Penal Code statute 37.10(a)(4) makes it a third-degree felony if a defendant "possesses, sells, or offers to sell a governmental record or a blank governmental record form with intent that it be used unlawfully."
So far county records show that DA Saenz has never presented the evidence against Sosa to a grand jury for an indictment since he came before Padilla in August.
Since the magisttrate's court does not scan its documents such as the probable cause affidavits in the Sosa cases, we'll never know the details of the charges until a grand jury returns an indictment, if ever.

The offenses alleged in the Sosa cases indicate that five of the Tampering with Government Documetnts offenses occurred on May 8, and five on June 5, 2015, and the use of a false name on a car registration also on June 5. He was arrested on Aug. 28 and charged with the offenses.
So far, there has been no movement in these cases.
Courthouse sources tell us that Sosa may have been cooperating with the DA's Office, the Texas Attorney General and the alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies to develop a case against Yzaguiree and the other defendants. In the affidavit made public by the DA's Office, it states that a confidential informant left $300 on Yzaguirre's desk after he had acquired three fake car titles from a tax office clerk.
The first incident allegedly took place last September 14 and involved three cars. The second affidavit for probable cause states that later that year, on Dec. 15, the informant procured two car titles from Yzaguirre's office and left $200 on his desk.