WHY WE SHOULDN'T NAME THINGS AFTER LIVING PEOPLE

 

By Juan Montoya
Imagine that you are a child attending a school in San Benito named after someone like attorney Oscar de la Fuente.
As you ask about the name in the entrance to the school, you might stop and ask an a grownup what that person did to get the acknowledgement afforded him by the school district.
If you are an impertinent kid, you might ask what his namesake (Jr.) has done to honor the name.
Well, the former (and convicted) 404th District Judge Abel Limas said on the stand that the younger De la Fuente gave him a $4,000 kickback for an ad litem appointment for starters. And even though De La Fuente was not charged in connection with the case, that fact has never been denied.
It seems that De la Fuente and Limas had a close working relationship and Limas admitted that he owed him $3,000 from the sale of land they owned together. There were other, less innocent, instances where money changed hands between the two, Limas said on the stand. He said he "borrowed" $2,000-$5,000 after learning the De La Fuente family had a large windfall coming from the tragic aerial crash.
According to Limas' plea packet memo, Limas wanted (and De la Fuente agreed?) a 10 percent cut of a $14 million dollars paid in the Valley AirCare crash case. That lawsuit was filed by family members of paramedics killed in a February 2008 chopper mishap in the Laguna Madre.
Less than one month before he left office, Limas had the case transferred to "his friend" Judge Leonel Alejandro in the 357th State District Court.
We haven't named any buildings after friendly Leonel yet, have we?
That was settled in his court for $14 million dollars in October 2009. According to the plea packet, Limas got another $85,000 dollars in December 2009, two months after the case was settled.Limas reiterated that his “compadre” De la Fuente also had bribed him on several occasions.
How about the former Brownsville Mayor Eddie Treviño? He not only gave Limas money $2,000 (unreported) for his campaign, but also is named in court documents as having given Limas a bribe.
Limas, on the stand, recaled how he stuck the $2,000 in a coat pocket. “My state of mind was I'm not going to report it. It was my decision. It was for the campaign, initially.”
Limas also testified that Treviño had bribed him with $1,000 in return for an appointment as an ad-litem legal representative. Treviño was also not charged in the case.
His firm was recently named as the lead counsel for the Brownsville Public Utility Board by some of the very same board members that he appointed when he was mayor. I'll scratch your back, and you give me some scratch?
As has been pointed out by others, the same could be said about other people with roads, buildings and schools named fter them while they are still alive. The names of Sen Eddie Lucio Jr. comes to mind as does the name of former U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, UTB President Julie Garcia, etc.
By now that nosy San Benito (and Brownsville?) student gets the idea. The lesson of the story is, if you get caught bribing judges to pervert the truth and priofit nicely at the same time, you just might get a building named after you or get a cushy deal with the local municipality or utility.