Whether he liked it or not, a former trustee defeated in his run for the board of the Brownsville Independent School District two years ago has been called to the carpet today to appear before federal judge Andrew Hanen to explain why he had not signed off on the settlement of the case brought against them and the district by former CFO Antonio Juarez.
The unusual summons came about because Rick Zayas had not signed off on the agreement that gave Juarez back employment with a contract as a Human Resources specialists and a cash settlement.Juarez was fired from the district on a vote by Zayas, Ruben Cortez, Rolando Aguilar and Joe Colunga after they claimed that he had given the wrong recommendation on the district's lucrative Stop-Loss insurance contract. Briefs in the case indicated that the former board majority had favored the company represented by their political supporter and benefactor the late Johnny Cavazos.
Juarez tape-recorded conversations with former trustee Otis Powers – since reelected to the BISD board – that indicated that a conspiracy existed to use the grievance process to turn one employee against another and to allow the majority to justify terminating others.
Juarez, instead of participating in the conspiracy, went to the FBI and filed the lawsuit when he was terminated.
Cortez has since been elected to the Texas State Board of Education and Zayas filed a lawsuit – which in turn generated a countersuit – against the forensic auditing firm Deffenbaugh and Associates on behalf of former DA Joe Rodriguez and Rivera H.S. coach Tom Chavez. In that case, the duo alleged that the audit results defamed them when it outlined the way in which Chavez allegedly steered business toward a sports-supply company of which Rodriguez turned out to be a sales representative.
In turn, Deffenbaugh and Associates charged Rodriguez and Chavez with defamation and asked for $1 million in damages.
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