JUDGE AWARDS $1.8 MILLION AWARD TO SOROLA IN DEFAMATION CASE: TRIAL TESTIMONY, EXHIBITS, REVEAL ADOBATTI, ERIN HERNANDEZ'S HIDDEN HAND

(Doroteo Garcia, Ricardo Adobatti, and Judge Erin Hernandez Garcia celebrate Adobatti's election victory over Louis Sorola in 2020. After a bench trial, a visiting judge awarded Sorola a $1.8 million judgment – one of the largest in Texas – against three defendants for defaming him in a video made in Spanish and English and spread on social media a week before early voting accusing him of sexual harassment, of abuse of official capacity, of retaliation, harassment, hostile work environment, and criminal acts. In sworn depositions and in open court two female defendants say Adobbatti and Judge Erin Hernandez Garcia pressured them to make the video to smear Sorola and tilt the election in Adobatti's favor.)

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

A visiting judge has awarded Brownsville attorney Louis Sorola $1.8 million in damages following a bench trial where he found that Dora Guzman and Rubi Moreno, Cameron County Magistrate court administrator and clerk, respectively, and Brownsville resident Evaristo "Viro" Cardenas were liable for defamation, libel, slander, aiding and abetting, business disparagement, emotional distress, tortious interference with business relationships, and civil conspiracy.

Prior to the trial Guzman and Moreno appealed his pre-trial ruling to the 13th Court of Appeal and the Texas Supreme Court, both of which upheld visiting judge David Stith's June 23, 2023 decision to proceed to trial.

The case revolved around a video released on the eve of the 2020 elections where Sorola was a candidate for the Cameron County 404th District Court against Ricardo M. Adobbati.

The court found that defendants Guzman, Cardenas, and Moreno had maliciously and with reckless disregard for the truth accused Sorola of committing crimes and of sexual harassment even after a Cameron County Human Resource investigation – including investigating Texas Rangers – and a panel of district judges had exonorated him of the charges.  The women's complaints to HR and the judges' panel accused him of sexual harassment, of abuse of official capacity, of retaliation, harassment, hostile work environment. 

The judges issued a private reprimand for Sorola's inappropriate use if the "F" word toward the two women. 

And although neither Adobbati, now the judge of the 404th district court, nor current magistrate Erin Hernandez Garcia were defendants in the case, depositions and text messages entered into evidence in the case indicate that they had a direct hand in pressuring Guzman and Moreno to make the tape and producing it and distributing just before early voting started in that election.

At one point in her deposition, Guzman said that Adobatti had provided copies of their complaints filed with the HR and the judges' panel to the film crew and arranged for its production and oversaw the editing of the tape. 

She also testified under oath that Garcia had advised her to get tid of the forwarded text messages between her and Adobatti and Guzman going as far as telling her to "lose" her phone and text messages. Garcia was Guzman and Moreno's immediate supervisor judge.

Guzman's deposition indicates that starting in October 2019, when Garcia became magistrate and Sorola had been appointed associate district judge, their boss Judge Garcia began to pressure them to talk with Adobatti and urging them to make the  tape that eventually became the libelous recording.

"Mr. Rick wants to talk to you guys,"...and I go, "Who's Rick?" "Adobbati. Mr. Adobbati would like to talk to you girls," Guzman said at her deposition. "Maybe a couple of days after, she came back and said that he really wanted to talk to us, that he wanted to find out what had happened at the court and maybe help us get our story out about how Mr. Sorola had treated us and so on and so forth and saying that maybe we could be the voice for other people, and he just wanted to know how we were treated and what – everything that we went through."

The women said that Garcia's constant pressure over two or three months eventually led them to agree to meet with Adobatti on January 26, 2020 at her office at 905 E Los Ebanos Blvd. and to agree to make the tape assuring them that their actions were protected by the First Amendment and the Texas Citizens Participation Act. 

Guzman also stated in her sworn deposition that Adobatti and Garcia said they would help them in case there were any legal action brought against them by Sorola."I have some friends in Mexico, some reporters that can help you so  that you can tell your story and put it out there," Guzman said Adobatti assured them. "And he would get them to come and that he could get the locations and he could get the people to get the settle – to set up and get the video on us."

Over the course of the next few weeks, the women said that Adobatti's friends – reporters and production staff including Eduardo Aldrete, at right, – filmed two videos, one in Spanish and another in English, where they addressed the complaints they had filed with HR and the district judges' panel, both which exonorated Sorola, and were told that they would be shown the finished product before they were aired. One was filmed on February 8. Guzman said that despite their promise to show them before they aired, they were not shown them.

Guzman said Adobatti seemed pleased with their performance, although they said that they had not been shown the finished interviews before they were posted as they had been assured before they taped, they later were widely distributed on social media with subtitles accusing Sorola of official misconduct, sexual harassment, being legally deficient and of  committing criminal acts.

Texts submitted into evidence show that Adobatti told Garcia that she tell the women they had done a great job and that it would take very little editing to get them ready for distribution.

"Please let her (Guzman) know that the reporters were very impressed with her," Adobatti's text to Garcia which she forwarded to Guzman reads. 

The text messages between magistrate judge Garcia and Guzman indicate that Garcia's mother Norma Hernandez would help to distribute the HR and judge panel documents to the Brownsville Herald and that the judge had reached out to local podcaster Erasmo Castro and Brownsville Voice blogger Robert Wightman to spread the allegations against Sorola on social media. 

And when Sorola filed his lawsuit against Guzman, Moreno and Cardenas, Guzman said she was sure that both Garcia and Adobatti would be there for them. That turned out to be bad legal advice, both women asserted later. The women were not told their house insurance could provide able legal assistance at no cost to them.

"Well, that's what they told us, that, you know...You can't get in trouble, you know. And if you feel like you're going to get in trouble, we're going to be here for you. We'll take care of you guys. Don't worry about it. We're here for you guys," Guzman said in her sworn deposition.

Guzman said that instead, they referred her and Moreno to local attorney Mark Sossi to defend them, but that he seemed to lose interest when they couldn't pay him the $5,000 each he wanted to charge them. She said in her sworn deposition that Sossi grew visibly agitated when she brought up Adobatti and Garcia's name during their meeting.

"And he got upset because I brought their names up," she said in the deposition. " He goes, 'You haven't even met with them. How do you have proof' and so on and so forth. And I told him, "I do have the proof. I have all the text messages. And he just did not – he didn't want me to mention Mr. Adobbati's name or Judge Garcia at all."

"And I told him no, and he got mad. And after that he withdrew from being my attorney as well,  so –  and I accepted it because I'd rather go without an attorney than an attorney that's going to lie and put the blame on me."

"And even when we approached her to tell her, she just said that -- you know, we told her, "Can  you ask Mr. Adobbati if he can help us." And she said – she made it very clear, crystal clear – that Mr. Adobbati could not be tied up to any of this."

"Q: And wanted you to take full responsibility for it...

"A:  Exactly, because that's what they were – at the end of the day, that's what they wanted. They betrayed us. They betrayed our trust."

During the trial, Judge Stith asked Moreno directly in court who had put them up to making the video and she answered unequivocally that it was "Judge Adobatti and Judge Hernandez Garcia."

When Guzman told Garcia that she still had the text messages that showed Adobatti and her orchestrated the interviews to defame Sorola, she said Garcia advised her to get rid of the phone.

"A: Actually, she told me to get rid of the phone. 

"Q What did she say?

"A She said, "Get rid of the phone. I said, 'I can't.' 

"Q And when did she tell you to do that? 

"A When -- I think when you were asking for the discovery and the interrogatories and all that stuff. She said, "Just get rid of your phone. I said, 'I can't. I can't do that.' And she goes, 'Just get rid of the phone. I'll throw mine away and I'll say – just say you lost it.' I said, "I can't do that. I can't do that."

"I do believe that because everything started from Judge Garcia approaching us that Mr. Adobbati wanted to speak to us in regards to what had happened with Mr. Sorola and they wanted us to do the video. That's the root of where everything started."

Just when you thought that the Cameron County judiciary had erased and discarded its sullied past, the evidence produced in this case shows that at least two of its members still carry over some of its worse habits. How would the average citizen fare before these two?