COB GETS ETHICS-CHALLENGED SOSSI MORE $$$$ HELP

By Juan Montoya
What do you give an ethics-challenged attorney whose annual take from the city till exceeds $180,000 and has dragged his employer into contentious personal litigation of his own doing?
How about another well-paid assistant?
The City of Brownsville is advertising for yet another assistant to help Mark E. Sossi handle the city's business.
At an estimated $4,000 to $5,000 a month, it could easily cost the city an additional $50,000.
This comes just after Sossi hired his pals over at Denton, Navarro, Rocha, Bernal, Hyde and Zech, P.C. to represent him in the lawsuit against this blogger alleging defamation and emotional distress involving his inappropriate relationship with a former female city employer who has since been terminated.
The lawyers hired by Sossi have been used extensively by the city to handle labor claims in mediation and in the courts, often with disastrous results for the city. Following the retirement of Asst. city attorney John Chosy, the staff over at the legal department has been short handed. Sossi has one helper, Asst. City Attorney Allison Bastian.
But even that has some complications because Bastian has been named as one of 30 witnesses in the case involving the former city employee. Apparently, Bastian personally assisted the woman in the case following the controversial events of the night in question. She also filed a motion on Sossi's behalf to quash a motion from El Rrun-Rrun attorneys for taped interviews with police detectives where she told them of Sossi's role in the events surrounding the sordid affair.
Sossi then filed a lawsuit in state court asking for $10 million in damages. Our lawyers then counter sued and filed an anti-SLAPP motion requiring him to provide evidence that this blog was not in the free exercise of our First Amendment rights in pursuit of the truth.
This ludicrous situation – having the plaintiff who filed the lawsuit deny the defendant the evidence required to prove the story was true – became even more tangled when, a few days before the hearing before visiting judge Manuel Bañales, Sossi filed a nonsuit there and hired Navarro who moved it to federal court.
A federal magistrate then ordered that Sossi's lawyers provide him with a brief which would justify moving the case to federal court that was not based on a mere countersuit by the defendant.
He has given them until May 12 to deliver the brief to his court.
And now the city is not merely paying Sossi what we consider exorbitant fees for a mediocre work misbehavior by product, but is also condoning his misbehavior. Now, with the hiring of yet another assistant, the taxpayers are taking a triple whammy to protect him.
By the way, when Da Mayor Tony Martinez came into office the first time five years ago, he charged Sossi coming up with a code of ethics for the city. So far, noting remotely resembling ethical conduct has come from those quarters.