IS CHILD-SUPPORT CASE INVOLVING AURORA STILL ALIVE?

By Juan Montoya
There has been silence regarding the case against a child-support intake clerk where her boss Cameron County District Clerk Aurora De la Garza was said to have instruct potential witnesses to hide evidence and effectively obstructing the investigation.
We do know that the case had been assigned to a special prosecutor by former District Attorney Armando Villalobos, but where the issue now stands is unknown.
If you remember, county administrators in their attempt to ferret our facts related to the case of Melinda Gilman Gonzalez, the intake clerk at the district clerk's child support collection branch, was charged by Cameron County Sheriff's Department investigators with taking between $8,000 to $10,000 in payments made to the courts by parents making child support payments, conducted their own internal inquiry.
Gonzalez, by the way, just happens to be the stepdaughter of Peter Gilman and his wife, who both work for the DA's Office,
A review of the collection system by the Cameron County Auditor's Office found that there was a serious flaw in the way that the system was set up that allowed for the issuance of handwritten receipts instead between 4: 30  and 5 p.m. that were not being entered into the computerized system, thereby eluding detection when accounts receivable and the receipts in the ledger were reconciled.
The payments made after 4:30 p.m. were kept in receipt books in the possession and control of the clerks working in the collections office.
During the investigation into the whereabouts of these receipts, news reports indicated that some may have turned up missing, thereby making it difficult to learn just who made payments and whether the funds may have been included among those that Gonzalez is said to have taken for her personal use.
After the employees were interviewed and their statements taken, they were given to the care of the Cameron County Auditor's Office. County administrators assumed that those statements taken from the employees that indicated that De la Garza may have instructed some not to produce the missing receipt books would be turned over to the Sheriff Department investigators to assist in the prosecution of the clerk.
But, lo and behold, during an update into the case there was no mention of the statements taken from the employees, thereby concealing any allegations of De la Garza's alleged complicity. Neither the sheriff's report nor the Asst. DA handling the case could explain why the letters that were placed in the auditor's office custody were part of the investigation.

Was it perhaps to protect Aurorita so that this alleged obstruction of justice and attempted protection of Gonzales could be quietly squelched?
We came into possession of a October 12 email from the DA's Office to Bruce Hodge, the commissioners court counsel, that reads:
"Please allow this e-mail to memorialize our phone conversation yesterday, wherein you advised me that the County Auditor was in possession of a statement from a County employee relating to the reported theft of funds from the District Clerk’s Office, which occurred earlier this year. You further advised me that you would ask the Auditor to provide a copy of said statement to the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office, so that it can be made a part of the criminal investigative file."
Did Hodge finally comply with the DA's request and forward the incriminating employees' statements to the DA?
It may be that the case may have been transferred out of this county to prevent any suspicion of favoritism or undue influence from local officials. We are in the process of filing an open records request with the new crew at the DA's office and will keep our three readers posted.