ELIZONDO TRIES TO EXPUNGE FELONY HE DENIED EXISTED

By Juan Montoya

Even though newly-hired Brownsville Fire Chief Carlos Elizondo has steadfastedly denied that he was ever arrested and tried for a felony theft on a Los Fresnos lumber company in 2002, his attorneys  went before 444th District Judge David Sanchez to expunge any record of the incident.
However, since Sanchez is out of town, the case was heard by retired judge Leonel Alejandro.

In a case labeled 2016 DCL-03001, Elizondo asks the court to expunge any mention of the felony theft charge that was dismissed by then-404th District Judge Abel Limas, who issued an order of dismissal stating that  restitution was paid to the victim.
Since the court's secretary did not note the result of Elizondo's petition on the public access docket, we don't know whether Alejandro granted the petition or took it under advisement and will issue his decision later.

Local attorneys say that it is customary for those petitioning for expunction have to go back to the original court to have their petition  reconsidered. In this case, it was heard in the 444th District Court instead of on the 404th now presided over by Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez.
It was not, but that throws an interesting light on local politics since Elizondo – bedsides being fire chief – is also a Brownsville Independent School District trustee. Cornejo-Lopez has filed her treasurer's announcement to run for a seat on the BISD board but has not filed as a candidate.  

And there are other wrinkles in this case. 

The date of the violation is April 2001, and the Cameron County Sheriffs' Dept. and who eventually arrested Elizondo in August based on a grand jury indictment (DA #120025178). The case was filed in the 404th on June 26, 2002.

Elizondo's court-appointed attorney was Armando Villalobos. Both Limas and Villaobos have been convicted and imprisoned for racketeering and taking bribes, the infamous cash for favors judicial corruption cases heard in federal court.
Curiously, Alejandro's name came up repreatedly in the Limas-Villaobos corruption trialas as being a "friendly" judge with the attorneys associated with big-money personal injury lawyer Mark Rosenthal. Rosethal is also serving time for his role in bribing local judges.

There are other strange facts surrounding Elizondo's 2002 case. Even though the case "dismissed," Elizondo agreed to pay restitution and Limas dismissed the felony charge.
And when people tried to find the original case (02-CR-00000691) in the county's Oddysey computer system, district court staffers said it could not be found and that it did not exist. This was even before yesterday's petition to expunge was heard before Alejandro.
According to the Texas Criminal Code, an expungement can be granted if:

  

*You were arrested but were not subsequently charged with a crime.
*Your case was dismissed for lack of probable cause, insufficient evidence or unavailable witnesses. (There's nothing here about dismissing a case because the defendant paid restitution)
*The grand jury "no billed" an indictment against you.
*You were acquitted (found "not guilty") by a judge or jury.
*You successfully completed deferred adjudication for a Class C misdemeanor.
*You plead guilty to a Class C misdemeanor alcohol crime such as public intoxication.
*Your criminal record is the result of identity theft.

Now, why Limas dismissed the case if there was probable cause, sufficient evidence and available witnesses, is a question only he can answer. Did the close relationship between Limas and his court's public defender (Armando Villalobos) play a part in the arrangement?
If anything, Elizondo seems to lead a charmed existence.
Even before he was named chief of the fire department, he had been named in a lawsuit by firefighter Sacramento Diosdado who claimed that someone (nobody knows who) had changed Elizondo's grades on a captain's civil service examination so that his grade went up from 69 to 71. Diosdado had scored a 70, and the changes placed Elizondo over him for consideration for promotion to that rank.
We have since learned that the case had been dismissed, but do not know the reasons for the dismissal.
Now, in a normal world, if the city administration had heard about cheating on a civil service exam, the next step would be to have the Brownsville Police Department send a detective to investigate the alleged crime, write down his findings, and then turn over the evidence to the Cameron County District Attorney to determine whether to present the case to a grand jury for indictment. That has not happened.
Instead, Brownsville City Manager Charlie Cabler picked Elizondo to be the fire chief and the city commission approved it.
Another wrinkle. The Brownsville Personnel Policy Manual is very clear that a city employee (never mind a department head or supervisor like Elizondo) is not allowed to hold a public office in a jurisdiction that includes the city.
It reads:
Section 702: Political Activity
"B. Specifically, City Employees may not engage in the following activities:
4. Hold an elective City office or hold an elective or appointive office in any other jurisdiction where service would constitute a direct conflict of interest with City employment, with or without remuneration. Upon assuming such office, an Employee shall resign or shall be dismissed for cause upon failure to do so."
That happened in El Paso when a fire depatment officer ran for school boad and won. He had to resign his seat or lose his job.  On May, 2008, Joe Sarabia, a  lieutenant with the El Paso Fire Department, decided he was going to keep his job instead of taking office after a meeting with supervisors who told him that city rules would not allow be seated to elected office.
http://archive.newspapertree.com/news/2450-updated-newly-elected-socorro-trustee-cannot-take-office-and-keep-city-job
As we said, in a normal world, the city would require Elizondo to give up his school board seat. But this is not a normal city where things are not always done by the book. So we end up with a suspect fire chief in Elizondo, a ethics-challenged city attorney in Mark Sossi who has his own motives for not pressing the point, a mayor who specualtes in downtown real estate using public funds, and a city manager in Cabler who specializes in putting out brush fires and sweeping scandal under the rug to keep his $225,000 gig.