CITY COMMISSION DECIDES WHETHER TO CAN SOSSI TODAY

By Juan Montoya
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
For the last eight years, Brownsville City Attorney Mark Sossi has led a charmed existence.

But if – as it appears – a majority on the City of Brownsville Commission decides Tuesday that the city could be better off without his services, that gravy train could come to an end.

Sossi latched on the the city trough July 15, 2009 when he inked a five-paragraph "agreement for legal services" between him and the City of Brownsville.  Then-Mayor Pat Ahumada and City Manager Charlie Cabler agreed to pay the ethics-challenged lawyer $10,000 a month to advise the commission, plus another $5,000 to act as counsel for the Greater Brownsville Investment Corporation.

Do the math. At $180,000 a year times 8, he has squeezed a gross $1,440,000 out of the city coffers for his services.

There is irony running throughout this sad tale. The name of his company to whom the city made out the checks? How about Mark Sossi  DBA as the Good Government Law Firm?

Subsequent city commissions and mayors (Tony Martinez) have opted to keep him on board despite some embarrassing episodes of questionable moral character. This from the man that Da Mayor entrusted with the task of developing a code of ethics for city elected officials, administrators, staff and employees which has yet to appear six years later.

A cursory reading of the "contract" shows that it is an open-ended deal that can be terminated at the whim of  a majority of the city commission or by Sossi himself.

But Sossi is no longer a contract attorney. On January 17, he managed to convince a majority of the city commission to make him a regular city employee with all the benefits. That included his ability to enroll for the city's health insurance plan.

Sossi told the commissioners that he desperately needed this since he was in the middle of a custody and child-support lawsuit and he would be responsible for providing a child with health insurance. The commission – without going through the niceties of advertising for the position, taking RFPs for legal services, or interviewing any candidates – merely voted to make the legal counsel slot open and filled it with Sossi after emerging from executive session.

The child's mother – an erotic dancer he met at a local "gentlemen's" club – counter-sued Sossi for child support after he filed for custody in court and demanded she move out of his house and asked the court to order she to pay him for the child's care. The court ruled in her favor and granted her custody and ordered the lawyer to pay her child support and provide health insurance for the child.

In her motion, she claimed that Sossi was heavily dependent on cocaine and asked that a follicle drug test be performed on the attorney. Before that could happen, an agreement was reached.

However, when the commission approved his hiring as a regular city employee on January 17, he promised them he would work exclusively for the city as a full-time employee at his current salary and have no other clients. But less than a month later, on February 14 (Valentine's Day) – unbeknownst to the commissioners – Sossi inked a sweetheart retainer contract with the City of Mission at $2,500 a month. (See graphic. Click to enlarge.)

In fact, he even used the city's P.O. Box 1669 in Brownsville as his mailing address in the agreement. And a check on the Texas State Bar website shows that he deleted the city phone number yesterday and doesn't list one today.

How does he manage remain on the job?

Up until now, Sossi has done exactly as his benefactors on the city commission have asked him to do. That ranges from closing off the public comment section from the city's air waves citing a fear of litigation, doled out legal work to a firm to which he lost a court settlement, allowed the GBIC's corporate charter to be forfeited because he didn't file the mandatory four-year report, let his own law license to lapse, and even allowed his Mark Sossi P.C. corporate charter to expire.

Let's go over some of his sins.


Perhaps the current commissioners and Hizzoner Da Mayor Tony Martinez do not recall that Sossi, at the behest of a majority on the city commission that included Carlos Cisneros, Ricardo Longoria, Charlie Atkinson and others, challenged a watchdog group in court after they sued them and the city for giving them health insurance, mileage, cell phones and other benefits that were not enumerated in the city charter.

A state district judge did not buy Sossi's argument that since they were not specifically enumerated in the negative, that the commissioners could continue at the trough because the city charter did not specifically prohibit them.

Sossi's soaring oratory and smoke and mirrors were unceremoniously rejected by the court, but not before he nailed the city for a reported $40,000 in fees to represent the commissioners in an indefensible position. His sterling performance was rewarded when, after the trial, the majority on the commission chose to ditch city attorney Jim Goza and hire Sossi.

Before the issue reached the courts, Sossi was also placed on the charter review committee where the group discussed the possibility of allowing the mayor and commissioners to give themselves at a level of their own choosing.
This despite the fact that voters, in a previous charter amendment election, voted down the amendments that would have accomplished the very same thing.

But perhaps the most damning indictment of Sossi's ethics was his doling out city jobs to his former law firm, Willette and Guerra.
Local watchdog Argelia Miller wrote Cabler to complain that Sossi had let out city-paid contracts to Willette and Guerra LLP, "a firm that had sued him and won a judgement of $167,00. He took money that belonged to the firm...and was sued and lost..."

"At the time I wrote the letter," Miller continues, "He had given Willette and Guerra city contracts in excess of $37,000. Now in 2011, records indicate he has given them contracts for over $75,000 from January to March 2011."
Miller wrote Martinez that it was hard for her and others to understand how Sossi "could favor a firm that sued him and that he owed $167,929 to as of 8-09-2009. It is also hard to understand how the city of Brownsville allows this arrangement.

Since this has happened, Sossi has been sued twice for legal malpractice for taking their money without doing any advocacy work on their behalf.

*The first was filed by Peter Zavaletta on behalf of Brownsville Independent School District teacher and soccer coach Jesus Abete in the 357th District Court.
Abete claimed  in his lawsuit that he "duly signed a contract" with Sossi and that the attorney signed the contract to represent him to recover legal damages sustained as a result of an auto accident. The Oliveira Middle School algebra and math teacher also claims that Sossi represented to him that the case was timely filed in court.
"In the ensuing months, (Sossi) repeatedly lied to (Abete), and misrepresented the true facts of the underlying lawsuit to (him).

"The truth is that (Sossi) never filed suit on behalf of Abete, and by law, suit had to be filed before the statute of limitations expired. The statute of limitations is two years from the date of the accident (January 2, 2009) Jan. 8, 2011. If the suit was not filed by then, (Abete's) rights would have been forever extinguished," the lawsuit states.

"(Sossi) failed to file (Abete's) suit," it continues. "Now that the statute of limitations has expired, (Abete) is forever barred from recovering damages for the serious personal injuries he suffered in the (crash).

*In the second, Rogelio and Ingrid Gonzalez, also of Brownsville, filed a lawsuit against Sossi in the 138th District Court and said the lawyer committed malpractice when he represented them in a real-estate dispute with a bank and title company.

He has also been accused of underpaying the Texas Workforce Commission unemployment fees of $20,711.66. And records indicate that the Internal Revenue Service  has filed at least six federal tax liens "on all property and rights to property belonging to (Sossi) in the amount of these taxes and additional penalties, interest, and costs that may accrue."

Like Abete, the couple charged that even though Sossi told them he was on top of the case, in the end, they found out that he had not been totally truthful with them and that their lawsuit had been dismissed by the court "for want of prosecution" on Sossi's part.
The Gonzalezs, as did Abete, said Sossi had failed in his duty and had by his actions allowed their case to be dismissed by not acting on their behalf as per their contract with him for his services.

The couple had contracted Sossi to represent them on January 28, 2008 and after years of delays, found out that the court had dismissed their case on Sept. 16, 2010.
They found out that one of the defendants in the case – Southern Texas Title Company – filed a "motion to dismiss for want of prosecution" which was later submitted to the court Sept. 14.
According to court records, on the date of the status hearing (Sept. 15) "Mark E. Sossi...failed to appear."

The U.S. Government als wants to recover some of the money Sossi owes them. In a series of tax lien actions, the government gave notice that the total of the tax liens for unpaid taxes is a whopping $565,593.70. (See graphic. Click to enlarge.)

Sossi started to work as a contract attorney for the city in July 2009. The years covered by the tax liens stretch back to December 2009, December 2010, December 2012, December 2013, December 2014, and December 2015.

In the first years, he listed his address as 144 Country Club Road, Apt. 7, in Brownsville. In the last two, his address is listed as P.O. Box 1669 in Brownsville.

Like the Abetes and the Gonzalezes, city residents are still awaiting the appearance of the code of ethics he is supposed to be writing to guide the conduct of our public servants.

This new commission also has a bone to pick with the city's counsel for allegedly obstructing the work of the audit and budget committees they formed to flush out irregularities in the city's departments. On one occasion, he is said to have told them that when three of them met to go over a department's audit, he told them they were in violation of the Texas Open Meetings act even though there was not a quorum.

"Go and file an injunction," he was told. "You know where the courthouse is."

We are waiting with bated breath to see what the city commissioners will do to address this anomaly of the legal profession. Will his knowledge of where the skeletons are buried prevent them from handing him a much-deserved termination?

And if they don't, how can they as public representatives condone and defend this type of behavior?