THE PLOT THICKENS: ZAYAS, PENA, COSTILLA(?) VS. CATY

By Juan Montoya
Just when we thought we had heard of all the skulldrudgery we could bear in school board politics, we now learn that one of the the two people former Brownsville Independent School District trustee Rick Zayas is representing in his late-minute lawsuit against Catalina Presas-Garcia was represented by Lou Costilla, a local attorney associated with the delinquent tax collection firm of Enrique Peña.
You remember Enrique. His company was not picked by a majority of the school board to collect delinquent taxes for the district.
Then it was revealed that his $150,000-plus home had been off the tax rolls for some 10 years. In the end, state law called for him to pay back taxes only on three years. Partly based on that fact, the BISD board voted not to award the delinquent -tax collection to Peña and his law firm.
The seller of the property, Juan Figeroa, was having trouble selling the home on 113 Lucylle because a divorce decree signed by a local judge gave rights to his wife Maria Ridriguez and their minor daughter. Costilla was representing Figeroa to try to modify the decree to allow for the transaction. As a result, the sale was delayed and fell through when Presas-Garcia tried to make the sale to buyer Miguel Salinas.
It was after the deal fell through that on Jan. 19, Figeroa called Presas-Garcia to meet with him and where she said he offered her money if she would vote to award the delinquent-tax collection BISD contract to the Peña law firm. He also is said to have threatened Presas-Garcia that he would file a lawsuit if she did not.When she refused to take the money and voted instead against the firm, Figeroa made good on his promise to file the lawsuit and – coincidence of coincidences – chose Zayas as his attorney.
So is it any wonder then, that at the very home that had been left off the tax rolls and belonged to the principal of the law firm large signs supporting Presas-Garcia's opponent Butch Barbosa, Minerva Peña and Jose Hector Chirinos.
Presas-Garcia – after the meeting and extortion threat by Figeroa – went to BISD attorney Arturo Michel and both went to the Cameron County District Attorney's Office and spoke to an investigator named Lopez. Nine months later, they have discovered that there had been no progress made in the extortion complaint.
Meanwhile, Presas-Garcia and her attorney have secured the receipts from the title company records to disprove the allegations of fraud that Zayas has listed on his complaint.
Presas-Garcia has remained defiant in the face of the second Zayas-filed lawsuits attacking her reputation.
"How strange that on the very afternoon when the lawsuit was filed, Zayas was at Costilla's office touching base with her," she said. "This man has been engaged in a campaign against me ever since he and Ruben Cortez lost the election two years ago. Everything in those lawsuits will get nowhere. This is being done for political purposes and nothing else."