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THINGS NOT FALLING INTO PLACE FOR D.A. MANDO VILLALOBOS
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By <strong>Juan Montoya</strong><br />Just when he most needed a victory in a high-profile criminal case to jump-start his candidacy for U.S. Representative to District 27, a jury refused to grant Cameron County District Attorney a capital murder conviction.<br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Villalobos, who handpicks his cases to get the most political bang for the buck was not successful (along with First Assistant Chuck Mattingly, himself a candidate for his boss' job) in convincing a jury to find Mexican Mafia “captain†Wilfredo Padilla guilty of capital murder. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyR64TqrwwuiN9Xv2Xhcr_uyzFNzP2epvSx3_6GDp3xhkjHxNMvO_FraQFYYGLxbwROzOawdtN2OPLf2cGD2gKE6paB1Sbmfn9xERrnzKBH62LkK_ykPeGCmL96IdSlVuL6ZlSWSJ6vX8/s1600/padilla1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyR64TqrwwuiN9Xv2Xhcr_uyzFNzP2epvSx3_6GDp3xhkjHxNMvO_FraQFYYGLxbwROzOawdtN2OPLf2cGD2gKE6paB1Sbmfn9xERrnzKBH62LkK_ykPeGCmL96IdSlVuL6ZlSWSJ6vX8/s1600/padilla1.jpg" /></a>However, they did offer him a consolation prize of convicting Padilla of murder and engaging in organized criminal activity in the murder of a 33-year-old Harlingen mother after three days of deliberations.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">A Cameron County jury sentenced Padilla to 50 years in prison for the murder charge and 30 years for engaging in organized criminal activity, along with a $10,000 fine for each conviction. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">He will serve the sentences concurrently after serving a 20-year federal sentence for a prior drug conviction.</div><br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The case presented Villalobos with a "sexy" opportunity to come out tough against the feared and notorious prison gangs which operate behind the walls of the penitentiary and reportedly order hits and criminal activity from behind bars.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Proving that Padilla had ordered the hit of the Harlingen woman in payment for a $30,000 debt owed him by a Mexican Mafia gang member proved the stumbling block for Villalobos and his first assistant. As is the norm in these cases where the victor doesn't come waving his laurels, Villalobos left the statements to his assistant instead of facing the media himself.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Mattingly told the local daily that the legal requirements to have a jury issue a guilty verdict in a capital murder case such as that involving prison gang members were too high to overcome.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">For starters, Padilla was not present at the scene of the crime and the only witnesses to the murder of Jo Ann Chavez, herself involved in the gang’s drug trade, were members of Padilla’s Mexican Mafia crew. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Their testimony needed to be corroborated in some way by independent evidence.<br />Mattingly said that these issues proved insurmountable to the prosecution of Padilla.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">"He gives orders," he said. "He has two, sometimes three, layers of insulation by the time we get to him."</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1wHVCInyHWlPF8gkUY2_3kBlCvWJOHX198YZHyRq1fZNtaU1KA_O1ye0art7-vfr-Ik2QWobGJ1pzTUos2W6DrrohTivxOTTp28NYELKrEeL78xib5ar0J9ac_a5seMl1doiewYUOXfo/s1600/mando.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1wHVCInyHWlPF8gkUY2_3kBlCvWJOHX198YZHyRq1fZNtaU1KA_O1ye0art7-vfr-Ik2QWobGJ1pzTUos2W6DrrohTivxOTTp28NYELKrEeL78xib5ar0J9ac_a5seMl1doiewYUOXfo/s200/mando.jpg" width="200" /></a>Mattingly's (and Villalobos' consolation, we assume) was that Padilla will be off the streets for at least half a century. However, he was already serving a 20-year federal sentence for a prior drug conviction when he was charged by Villalobos with the capital murder.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">"In the end, we got a murderer off the street," Mattingly said lamely.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Aside from Vilalobos' candidacy for the congressional seat, Mattingly himself would have basked in the glory of a capital murder conviction if the jury had issue don in the Padilla case. Mattingly is running for Cameron County District Attorney, as is former D.A. Luis Saenz, current DA Asst. Maria De Ford and former DA Asst. Carlos Masso. Masso is also a commissioner with the Brownsville Navigation District.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">If Padilla had gotten the death penalty, it would have pumped lifeblood into the candidacy of Villalobos and Mattingly.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The prosecution's strategy of using Mexican mafia gang members who were offered plea bargains in return for testifying against Padilla, a fact that apparently made the jurors doubt the credibility of their testimony.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Defense attorneys Ed K. Cyganiewcz and Trey Garza III honed in on this fact and questioned the trustworthiness of the testimony of Padilla’s Mexican Mafia crew. Some of them were actually involved in the Chavez murder took the stand to say Padilla ordered the murder.<br />Cyganiewcz said that the jury took the matter seriously enough to question the evidence presented to them by the prosecution.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Chavez’s actual killer, gang member Marcos Solis, refused to testify or corroborate the allegation that he agreed to commit the murder in order to repay a $30,000 debt he owed Padilla. The prosecution's case hinged on that testimony. Instead, another Mexican Mafia member testified to the debt and its repayment.<br />An inmate who met padilla while the jury deliberated his sentecne after his conviction on the lesser charges reproted that Padilla was scoffing at the verdict and the efforts of Villalobos and the prosecution team.</div><em>"No traiban nada</em>," he said as he sat alone in the cage wearing his state-afforded suit off the rack and new black leather shoes. <em>"Se chingaron."</em><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-2780755947393675122?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2011/12/things-not-falling-into-place-for-da.html
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HEALTHSMART LAWSUIT EXPOSED FOR WHAT IT WAS: A POLITICAL PLOY
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"<em>We are the hollow men...</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>This is the way the world ends</em><br /><em>Not with a bang but a whimper..."</em><br />From T.S. Eliot's, <em>The Hollow Men</em><br /><br />By <strong>Juan Montoya</strong><br />And so in the end, the election ploy to sue HealthSmart claiming overcharges and waving the carrot of a $14.5 million payoff on the eve of the 2010 Brownsville Independent School District elections has been shown for what it was: a ploy by the eventual losers in that election to sway voters to re-elect them.<br />On Sept. 18, 2009, the board of trustees of the Brownsville Independent School District directed then-interim superintendent Brett Springston to go our for proposals to audit the performance of AAG HealthSmart Inc., the outgoing third-party administrator (TPA) of the district's self-funded group health insurance plan.<br />The audit covered the two years HealthSmart was TPA, plan years 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, as well as the two previous years when Mutual of Omaha administered the plan.<br />Trustees awarded the contract for third-party administration of the district's health plan for 2009-2010 to Oklahoma-based Mutual Assurance Administrators (MMA), Inc. for $181,275 per month. The agent of record for MMA is longtime insurance mogul Johnny Cavazos who had enjoyed a near-monopoly of the insurance contracts with the district for many years and counted on the majority of the board to swing them his way.<br />That decision to ward the MMA was made in spite of a recommendation by then-Chief Financial Officer Tony Juarez that the contract be awarded to AAG HealthSmart.<br />That firm's contract was for $196,000 per month and expired Oct. 1, 2009.<br />Eventual election losers Ruben Cortez and Rick Zayas along with Joe Colunga and Rolando Aguilar contended that the increase in TPA costs from 2007-2008 to 2009-1010 from $34 million to $41 million ($7 million) were the result of HealthSmart "taking advantage" of the district.<br />And so, some $70,000 to $80,000 in legal fees later, the current legal counsel for the BISD admitted that the chances of the district prevailing in court and being able to prove that HelathSmart had overcharged the district were slim to none. Further, the lawyers said that proving damages was even iffier still. The myth that under MMA health-care costs would go down dissipated like a pipe dream when the board hired a consultant to analyze the matter.<br />The new majority on the board (Catalina Presas-Garcia, Lucy Longoria, Christina Saavedra and Enrique Escobedo) earlier this year heard that for the present budget-year the contract to MAA, it will cost the district $46.5 million to provide the same services that HealthSmart got sued because costs rose to $41 million. <br />What's more, for this next year (2011-2012), that figure is projected to rise to $51.1 under MMA.<br />BISD is self-insured and its 7,733 employees are covered by the plans.<br />When the former board majority sued HealthSmart, it did so because some trustees said the sudden increases in the district's health insurance were so obvious that anyone could see.<br />“Basically, it just seemed to me that they were taking advantage of us, that the TPA (third-party administrator) was putting profits ahead of district needs,†said Cortez in the heat of the election that he ultimately lost to Enrique Escobedo. “That was why I asked for (an)audit ... and now the audit has confirmed what we believed to be true.â€<br />Tony Fuller, then BISD's Chief Financial Officer, said at the time that claims totals for BISD's plan for the past six years were:<br />Under Mutual of Omaha:<br />*$26.025 million for 2003-2004;<br />*$23.605 million for 2004-2005;<br />*$26.862 million for 2005-2006 and<br />*$28.655 million for 2006-2007.<br />Under HealthSmart:<br />*$34.769 million for 2007-2008 and<br />*$41 million for 2008-2009.<br />Then, back to MMA:<br />*$46 million for 2010-2011<br />*$51 million for 2011-2012<br />Now the questions that are begging to be answered are:<br />1. If the former majority sued HealthSmart because costs increased from $34 to to $41 million from 2007-2008 to 2008-2009, shouldn't there be a lawsuit against MMA because they rose from $41 million to $46 million the following year (2010-2011), and then to $51 million a year later (2011-2012)?<br />2. Where are the savings that Cortez, Zayas and Aguilar said were coming as a result of changing TPAs and giving the business to their benefactor Cavazos?<br />3. Is it possible that BISD voters cannot see through the political smokescreen that Aguilar, Colunga and Minerva Peña are perpetrating to cover up the fact that they supported this political ploy at the expense of the very BISD taxpayers they are supposed to represent?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-5885003185591516928?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2011/12/healthsmart-lawsuit-exposed-for-what-it.html
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Tutankhamun: Wonderful Things from the Pharaoh’s Tomb
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<style>@font-face { font-family: "ï¼ï¼³ 明æœ";}@font-face { font-family: "ï¼ï¼³ 明æœ";}@font-face { font-family: "Cambria";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }span.yshortcuts { }.MsoChpDefault { font-family: Cambria; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }</style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-SFESYmtShU" width="560"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">By Raul Garcia Jr. / <span style="color: red;">Dec. 10, 2011</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.valleywoodblog.com/">www.valleywoodblog.com</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Special to El Rrun Rrun</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"> In 1922 on November 4<sup>th </sup><span class="yshortcuts">George Herbert, 5<sup>th</sup> Earl of Carnarvon</span> and Howard Carter unearthed the first intact tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt. The find was that of King Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh. The two archaeologists almost quit their expedition after eighteen years of excavation but months before their dig was set to expire they found the riches and royal splendor in King Tut’s tomb. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84AiBKgFqiWShPNkk7oIKeaKeBErLroJd6dYoLxYbGn0rswRHTVFVpzoLVjsTmFMMd9sZWoaGI2sfQG0pkhPMkjMlFQk-_HW8bFPuASO8UQxTTZAnihXESrRSrGQU3sAF8rBhg_7tNiA/s1600/tut1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84AiBKgFqiWShPNkk7oIKeaKeBErLroJd6dYoLxYbGn0rswRHTVFVpzoLVjsTmFMMd9sZWoaGI2sfQG0pkhPMkjMlFQk-_HW8bFPuASO8UQxTTZAnihXESrRSrGQU3sAF8rBhg_7tNiA/s400/tut1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Today and only for a few more weeks a traveling exhibit of reproduced ancient artifacts of King Tut and his royal possessions are on display in Edinburg, TX.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"> The exhibits title is, “Tutankhamun: Wonderful Things from the Pharaoh’s Tomb.â€</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">People in the Rio Grande Valley only have until January 4<sup>th</sup> to rediscover the same marvelous treasure at the University of Texas Pan American’s UTPA Visitors Center. The university has been hosting the free exhibit of King Tut’s artifacts since Sep. 26 when the it first went on display. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The original artifacts are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt and over thirty years had past since Tut and his things went on display in the United States in 2005 and 2007.<br /><br />King Tut was worshiped as a God and ruled Egypt during the 18th Dynasty (1333 BC â€" 1323 BC) for ten years from the age of nine to 19-years-old. The cause of his death in unknown. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7itKclzc4xAh-WPTqnGqBDiXE40QRiGn4cDIQ3gQkY7BDXcNQMWSinEwqBW8yvXhywQyyHZi5fJDNE-mLNfB-VAFFzu7yP7jgfPKkn3_1FNwZ86RS52FNV6WkaTBPoJp6LydIbwLcXRk/s1600/tut2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7itKclzc4xAh-WPTqnGqBDiXE40QRiGn4cDIQ3gQkY7BDXcNQMWSinEwqBW8yvXhywQyyHZi5fJDNE-mLNfB-VAFFzu7yP7jgfPKkn3_1FNwZ86RS52FNV6WkaTBPoJp6LydIbwLcXRk/s640/tut2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Tutankhamun: Wonderful Things from the Pharaoh's Tomb are recreations of the original finds. They are crafted in the same design and are a well representation of King Tut and the way he lived. In total the exhibit showcases 130 artifacts.<br /><br />Explore a rulers life and experience his marvelous treasure that was sought after for so many years in the Desert of the Tomb of the Valley of the Kings.<br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Exhibit Hours:<br />Monday-Friday 9 a.m. â€" 5 p.m., Saturday: 9 a.m. â€" 2 p.m., Sunday: closed<br /><br />WHERE: University of Texas-Pan American, 1201 W. University Drive, Edinburg.<br /><br />Request a Tour:<br />Large groups and school tours must submit a tour request form to schedule a group tour.<b style="font-weight: normal;"> 1 (866) 441 UTPA</b> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-6684561143579854090?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2011/12/tutankhamun-wonderful-things-from.html
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