Tuesday, November 18, 2008

South Texas DA Maybe a Little Crazy

That, or Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra has watched way too many episodes of 'Law & Order.' In this story, DA Guerra got a grand jury indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney and Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. According to the article, the 'indictment' is for;

"Cheney's indictment on a charge of engaging in an organized criminal activity criticizes the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies."

So, Guerra says because Cheney holds an interest in a company that runs federal prisons, this makes him responsible for 'misdemeanor' assaults. Okay, let's look at Juan Guerra's track record;

In February of 2007, the Brownsville Herald reported that four criminal cases and two civil cases had to be dismissed because of Guerra's absence from court. The reason for his absence was "his office computers were seized as part of an investigation that led to his Feb. 11 arrest."
Guerra was indicted himself until last month when a judge dismissed the charges against him for lack of evidence. Now, read further down the article at what Guerra did when threatened with contempt of court charges. He "camped in front of the Willacy County Jail, daring authorities to arrest him on a trespassing charge. Since last weekend, he's added livestock to the campsite." Are these the actions of a mentally balanced individual?

In August of this year, three county officials started a petition to remove Guerra from office.

In March of 2007, after an indictment against him had been dismissed, Guerra refused to take cases filed by the agencies that investigated him. This resulted in 23 criminal cases being dismissed. Guerra "vowed to push to dismiss cases until Police Chief Uvaldo Zamora and Chief Deputy David Martinez are fired" So, basically Guerra is refusing to do his job due to a personal grudge.

I'm sure by now you can see where this is going. Of course by reading the peanut gallery of chronicle comments many are joyous. Problem is they are so blinded by their hatred of Cheney and Gonzales they obviously have not taken the time to read the article and see the glaring problems with the character of Guerra. An interesting tidbit of information is brought out in this article.

"A second batch of indictments targeted public officials connected to Guerra's own legal battles.

Willacy County Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mervyn Mosbacker Jr. — a former U.S. attorney — and Gustavo Garza — a long-time political opponent of Guerra — were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression."

Going through the google searches on Guerra all of these names have turned up. All of these people that are under indictment now have been involved in some legal action against Guerra in the past. Guerra lost his bid for his fourth re-election in the primaries last spring. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out in the end. I imagine all the indictments will eventually be squashed. This reads more like a political statement made by a man with a grudge and a hammer.

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