WHERE ARE THE PRINCIPALS IN THE LIMAS DEBACLE NOW?

(Ed.'s Note: For some of our seven readers who were not around for the judiciary and attorney corruption trials, reading this little gem by reporter emeritus Emma Perez-Treviño at five years removed from the events, may provide an eye-opening peek into the inner workings of the local courts. Where are they now? We hope to answer as best we can.)

By EMMA PEREZ-TREVINO
The Brownsville Herald 
Posted Apr 23, 2011

"I want to be part of their team."That’s what Abel C. Limas said in the spring of 2000 — to join what he perceived as the club of state district court judges in Cameron County.

He was running for judge of the just-created 404th state Judicial District."We have very good judges. I want to be part of their team," Limas said during his campaign.

 "They are excellent, and I want them to know that I will not ever harm the integrity of that court."

Limas was elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004, thus serving eight years, January 2001 through December 2008.

He was indicted for racketeering –  accused of selling the bench in return for money and other considerations during his tenure – and on March 29 pleaded guilty.

The Brownsville Herald had reported on Limas since 2000.

(U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who accepted the guilty plea, handed Limas a total sentence of 72 months in federal prison. At the sentencing hearing, on August 31, 2013, additional testimony was presented concerning the impact suffered by victims with one victim testifying there was “outrage and shock at the magnitude of the corruption.” In his guilty plea on March 31, 2011, Limas admitted to the court that his conduct was “not a mistake, it was intentional,” and he had destroyed the public’s view of the local judiciary. Limas was further ordered to pay restitution of approximately $6,777,270.50 and will serve a term of three years of supervised release following completion of the prison sentence. An additional amount of $257,300 was ordered forfeited as proceeds derived from the offense. He surrendered to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Dec. 6, 2013. He will be eligible for release in Dec. 2019 and begin his three years of probation.)

The Brownsville Herald had reported on Limas since 2000. Reports on his activities and his relationship with some judges and attorneys raised eyebrows from the start.

Following is a sampling of reports from the Herald archive about Limas, starting with his first campaign and into his first years on the bench.

Loan guarantee

Not all funds raised by Limas for his 2000 campaign came from contributions. A good portion came from a $25,000 loan that Limas secured from the International Bank of Commerce. Four Brownsville attorneys and a relative put their names on the line for Limas, each guaranteeing $5,000 of the loan. These were not reported as campaign contributions, and individually they exceeded state limits on contributions to judicial candidates.

The attorneys were Ernesto Gamez Jr., who was Limas’ campaign spokesman; Leonel Alejandro, now judge of the 357th Judicial District; and former Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa’s partners at the time, Juan Magallanes and Eddie Treviño, with the then-law firm of Magallanes, Hinojosa & Treviño. The firm was under retainer with IBC.

Limas was criticized by a challenger who said that a group of powerful attorneys was out to get a court for Limas.
(Following the Limas trial, Leonel Alejandro resigned his position as judge in December 2012 with two years left in his term and Gov. Rick Perry appointed Oscar X. Garcia to serve out his unexpired term. Alejandro cited reaching retirement age as the reason for his leaving the bench that he had been elected to just two years prior in 2010.)

Insofar as his associates guaranteeing Limas’ loan, Hinojosa said the practice occurs all the time."People have to run political campaigns," he said at the time. "And Limas, I’ve known him just because he’s out there. He used to office with Juan Magallanes and that is kind of where I got to know him."
(Gilberto Hinojosa, after he left the county judge's seat where he served 12 years, was elected to be the Texas State Democratic Party chairman in 2007, a position he still holds. Magallanes was elected to the 357th District Court on Nov. 2014. Eddie Treviño ran for Cameron County commissioner in the 2012 primary runoff election and John Wood. Wood, in turn, lost to Carlos Cascos in the general election that November. Treviño won the Democratic party runoff election in 2016 against Cameron County Pct. 4 commissioner Dan Sanchez. He will take office January 2017. Gamez continues to practice law in Cameron County, most recently winning the capital murder case filed by D.A. Luis V. Saenz against Marco Antonio Gonzalez. He also represented Austin lawyer Marc Rosenthal with slightly worse results.) 

Gamez asked the Herald, "Why would you question that (loan guarantee)? It is most unfortunate that people look for trash other than the good of helping someone else."

Ad-litem fees

During Limas’ campaign in 2000, the issue of ad-litem fees was raised by one of Limas’ challengers. Ad-litem attorneys are appointed by judges to represent the interests of children or incompetent persons. Limas’ challenger said that ad-litem appointments are the way judges pay back political favors, help friends in need, or assist friends running for office or officeholders build a campaign war chest.

The Herald found that in the span of six years, Limas received $74,000 in ad-litem fees from 16 appointments made mostly by Judge Rogelio Valdez, now chief justice of the Texas Thirteenth Court of Appeals. 

Furthermore, now retired Judge Robert Garza, of the 138th Judicial District, awarded Limas $10,000 in fees three days after the March 14 primary that took Limas to the April runoff.

Limas dismissed the challenger’s arguments and didn’t respond when asked if the $10,000 would come in handy in his runoff campaign.

Instead, Limas said he had been working on the case for months and that he should have been paid more. Limas also said the attorneys who are appointed ad-litem are successful in their field and don’t need the money.

During the campaign, Limas said there are not many attorneys who practice family law and that he would appoint the most qualified as ad-litem attorneys.Valdez administered the oath of office to Limas.

Almost half of the $1.1 million that three district judges awarded in ad-litem fees from 1994 to 2000 went to four attorneys from a field of 56: Magallanes, Hinojosa, Gamez, and Limas.

Debt to Bail Bond Board

Limas owed Cameron County $28,500 when he was running for office in 2000, public records showed. He owed the money from his bail-bonding activities. Limas, as an attorney-surety, had executed the bonds for defendants, but the defendants later failed to appear in court; thus he was liable. 

When he took office in January 2001, district judges tapped him to represent them on the Cameron County Bail Bond Board, which regulates the bail bonding business.

Limas, who as district judge set, revoked and enforced bonds as one of his duties, had just made a $3,000 payment on the bond forfeitures that he owed after the Herald questioned the debt to the county.

Attorney Ernesto Gamez’s position on Limas’ behalf was that the Bail Bond Board had not once asked Limas or told him or implied that he owed any money.

Gamez also referred to an October 1998 letter generated by the board that cleared Limas of any debts and said that Limas’ attorney at the time went before the board to clear any outstanding judgments. Limas’ attorney was Eddie Treviño. 

"Abel Limas is an individual that the community loves and knows that he has a good heart and is in touch with the people of the community," Gamez said.

Travel allowance

In January 2001, the first month he was in office, and at the prodding of Gilberto Hinojosa, who was then Cameron County judge, Cameron County Commissioners Court approved a $9,300 car allowance for Limas in addition to his $107,100 salary so that he could make what other judges made. 

Unlike Limas, however, the other judges covered Willacy County. 

The amount also was to compensate what the other judges got from the Willacy County juvenile board. At that time because a district judge salary could not exceed $111,000, the $9,300 was called a car allowance although it was not.

"They work the same number of hours here or in Willacy County. There is no difference," Hinojosa said at the time, adding that the other judges didn’t go often to Willacy County.

Trip he couldn’t resist

A private airplane. Use of a $175,000-a-year, 22-seat luxury box. Free tickets, the San Antonio Spurs and the opening of National Basketball Association finals.It was a most tantalizing proposition in 2003 that Limas couldn’t pass up.

On June 4 of that year, Limas — together with the attorneys for both the plaintiff and defense in the Sierra vs. Whirlpool civil jury trial then before his court — recessed at the end of the work day and decided to fly to San Antonio for the Spurs game.

Limas said there was nothing inappropriate about the trip because full disclosure was made in court, lawyers on both sides did not object, the evidence portion of the trial had concluded, and because he "later" paid for his ticket and travel expenses and those of his son, who also went.

He said that all the lawyers agreed. 

"This demonstrates and speaks highly of these professionals, but most importantly that they have faith and trust in their local judiciary," Limas said.

The New Jersey Nets weren’t the only ones punished in Game One’s 88-77 loss to the Spurs.Yolanda de Leon, then district attorney, disciplined Assistant District Attorney David Sanchez — now judge of the 444thstate Judicial District — with unpaid leave for accepting Limas’ offer to go on the trip. Sanchez later resigned and declined comment.

The airplane that flew Limas to the game belonged to the Watts law firm of Corpus Christi, which also furnished the tickets to the game and use of the SBC Center luxury box, said plaintiffs’ attorney Ray M. Marchan.

Marchan and fellow plaintiff attorney Mikal C. Watts of Corpus Christi accompanied Limas to the game, along with defense attorney Darrell L. Barger of Corpus Christi.The judge was totally aboveboard, Marchan said.

"You meet people that you like and they do become friends. You go fishing, you do social things, but one thing that a friend never does is ask a friend to do anything illegal," Marchan said. (Marchan was sentenced to 42 months’ imprisonment for bribery as sentence he was to begin March 1, 2013 but vacated vacated upon his death April 31 after he dove off the Queen Isabella Causeway. If he had lived, he would have been released from prison on July 2016.)


(A total of eight defendants entered guilty pleas to related violations in the FBI’s four-year public corruption investigation, including Jose Santiago “Jim” Solis, former Texas State Representative; local attorney Jose “Joe” Valle; former Cameron County District Attorney’s Office investigator Jaime Munivez; Jose Manuel “Meme” Longoria; Armando Pena; and his wife, Karina. Three others—attorneys Ray Roman Marchan, Marc Garrett Rosenthal, and former Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos were found guilty of public corruption-related charges involving their association with Limas after separate jury trials. Solis was sentenced August 2, 2013, to 47 months, a sentence that when will complete at the end of 2017, 47 months after he turned himself in on Nov. 26, 2013.  Hanen sentenced Rosenthal to 20 years in federal prison and to pay more than $12 million dollars. Hanen also sentenced Villalobos to serve 13 years in federal prison on February 2014. He will be eligible for release in 2027.)