Last week in the Wall Street Journal there was a lengthy piece on the award, plaque and balloon industry in the United States. It was fascinating to read that big and small businesses across the nation spend no small sum awarding their employees and not for things like discovering a new antibiotic but for "Coming to work on time," "Having such a wonderful smile," "Just being you..." Did you know that there are businesses that do nothing but make confetti to throw at employees at "appreciation parties" and to go around the office "high-fiving" the employees? But why not believe it when we see it locally?

Last night the El Paso Bar Association held a banquet at the Santa Teresa Country Club (yes in Santa Teresa, NM, not in El Paso). We read that assistant district attorney Karen Larose, dutiful and loyal employee of Esparza, received the "State's Attorney Award." Sounds impressive doesn't it? Now why would Karen be so feted? Other than to testify at the Nancy Hollebeke Court of Inquiry as to why she was hiding behind a one way mirror directing the perniscious interrogation of a half-naked rape victim, I have not seen Karen Larose in a court room in years. My one salient impression of her reputation is based on news accounts of when the State Bar of Texas sued her for ethical violations. I heard Karen's sworn testimony, under penalty of perjury, at the Hollebeke Court of Inquiry and I blanched for her and grieved for the condition of my profession. Could Karen Larose be needing a public image face lift? Could Esparza need it for her? Nothing like a plaque and your name in the paper for getting an award to help that along.

The last time I was aware of Esparza getting and award was in 2005 when he was given the "Prosecutor of the Year Award." This was awarded to Esparza right after he spent a year fighting allegations of corruption and cover up and being sued in at least four civil rights lawsuits accusing him of serious abuses of the United States Consitution. This was also the year after the State released Brandon Moon from prison after serving a 17 year sentence for a rape he did not commit. (Esparza is now being sued for that too.) Esparza's award also came on the heels of appearing on the front page of the national section of the New York Times in a story about some of these scandals. The reporter, Ralph Blumenthal, asked Jaime Esparza in an interview if the rape victim his office directed the interrogation of from behind a hidden one way mirror had been told that she was being recorded, taped, and filmed. Esparza said yes, she had been informed. The reporter watched the taped interview (I was with him when he did so) and wrote in his article that no where in the recorded interview was the victim informed of the taping. It was noteworthy that the reporter included that observation in his story. What does it tell us about Mr. Esparza's veracity? What it tells us is that it is award time.

In September 2005, in the middle of the Hollebeke civil rights trial which had been calendered for months and to which Esparza had been subpoenaed and in which Esparza was slated to testify as the star witness, he just had to leave town to pick up, guess what, an award. Esparza got to kill two birds with one stone; he escaped a trial he had caused and he got to pick up an award that might make everyone think he is important and wonderful. Esparza actually flew into hurricane weather to go get the prize. -Not rain, nor sleet, snow or federal jury trial... Esparza hangs the the award which is a banner that says "Jaime Esparza, Prosecutor of the Year 2005, State Bar of Texas" over the mezzanine of the second floor of the county court house. If you come in the front doors , which is where hundreds of jurors pass every year, you will see the now sagging, aging banner hanging there while going through the metal detector.

Who actually gave the award to Esparza? The banner indicates that the State Bar chose Esparza. However, upon inquiry, the State Bar said it really didn't have anything to do with who got the award which was actually decided by the County and District Attorney's Association, a private, non-governmental group in which Esparza is a very active member and has a lot of clout. The State Bar said once the group made its selection as to who would receive the award, it donated some money and that was its only involvement. What a clever slight of hand. Get your friends in a private group to give you a prize and then get them to get a government entity like the State Bar of Texas to look like it gave you the award by having them involved in prize money and the printing of the banner. Get your friends at the county court house to let you hang your non-governmental flag over a wall to advertise that you are not really a crook. Nothing like an award to make people forget the unpleasant past. Could this be resume padding a'la MIT style?

In my experience, these awards to Esparza and choice members of his staff are red herrings meant to lead you away from seeing his and his staffers' true activities. Could it be that Esparza thinks that if he just throws enough confetti around, he will be able to dazzle and blind the voter to the truth? Amy Lujan, Esparza's personal secretary, gets awards too. She has to travel to central Texas to pick up her awards. This might explain why everyone is always wondering where she is. But we'll save that story for another day. In the meantime, El Pasoans, beware of prosecutors bearing awards.

Last night on channel 44 cable, Court TV had a piece on an El Paso case. It will run again today at 2:00 p.m.. Tony Ford was accused of capital murder in 1991. According to the news, the case was tried in 1993-94 and Ford was convicted and codemned to death for the killing. In 1993, Jaime Esparza was the District Attorney. The case was prosecuted by Chris Bradley and others. This is the same Chris Bradley who is now in private practice, and who served as a special prosecutor on the Alberto Ocegueda case and declined it, see Monday, April 23, 2007 blog.

According to Court TV and other news shows on the case, Tony Ford maintains that he was outside the residence at the time of the killing and was not the shooter. DNA testing has been ordered but the results are not conclusive due to the degraded condition of the samples. More testing will be forthcoming. Court TV featured now defeated ex-judge Luis Aguilar (he received a rare public reprimand while a judge from the state bar for his behavior on the bench) who was an assistant district attorney under Esparza and who was somehow involved in the case because he came out saying Tony Ford was the right man. In other words, he is defending the verdict. Independent investigators, not hacks of Esparza, involved now, say Tony Ford is the wrong man. In fact that is the title of the story, "The Wrong Man."

One person not showcased on the program was the District Attorney himself. Where is Mr. Esparza? Why would he pass up all of this TV coverage? He loves the camera. Whether Ford is guilty or not guilty, Esparza should be answering the questions. When you see the defeated judge Luis Aguilar up front defending the verdict, you know Esparza is once again a mile away watching the scene from underneath some desk. He needs to answer the question because HE IS IN CHARGE.

What we did see in yesteday's paper in the Living section was a photograph of Esparza's personal secretary Amy Lujan (Esparza supplements her county salary with approximately an additional $30,000 from public funds) with her family, her brother retired police officer Pete Ocegueda, Ofelia Ocegueda, Mark Ocegueda, Mike Ocegueda and Amanda Lujan on the "Victim's Walk." Two members of Amy Lujan's family work for Esparza. These are also the relatives of Alberto Ocegueda, aka Alberto Osegueda, who was accused of sexually assaulting a six year at the school where he was a coach. On April 13, 2007, Chris Bradley, the same prosecutor from the Ford case, declined the case on Ocegueda, and according to the paper was "unavailable" to answer questions. Was that little six year old girls' family invited to walk as victims? Which victims count and which ones don't?

One very important question on the Ocegueda aka Osegueda case is when did Esparza pass the case to Bradley. When a channel 7 reporter asked him, he said he didn't know. You see Ocegueda was arrested for the offense in November 2006. Esparza found out that I knew about the case and the inactivity on it on April 6, 2007. On April 13, 2007, Chris Bradley appears and declines it. When did Chris Bradley get on it? Was it in April 2007? Because if so, Esparza has some explaining to do as to why he held the case. The date Esparza transferred the case involving the rape of a child accusation on the brother of his personal and very favorite secretary should be emblazoned in his mind. So if his memory is faltering him, the question becomes why?

What follows is the content of a letter I have written and sent to El Paso Times editor Don Flores. Read it and weep.


April 23, 2007

Dionicio Flores
Editor of the El Paso Times
El Paso, Texas
79901

Re: The Alberto Ocegueda story and D.A. Jaime Esparza

Delivered by regular U.S. mail, return receipt requested U.S. mail and by fax

Dear Mr. Flores:

On November 8, 2006 your newspaper published a story about Socorro school teacher Alberto Ocegueda who was accused of aggravated sexual assault of a six year old student at school.

On April 6, 2007, I filed some court papers which alerted Jaime Esparza to the fact that I was aware of the Alberto Ocegueda story and the legal history. The Alberto Ocegueda story is a very bad story for Mr. Esparza.

One week after I filed these court papers and Mr. Esparza became aware that I knew what was going on with the Ocegueda case, the case was magically dumped by a special prosecutor, attorney Chris Bradley, making it appear that Esparza had had nothing to do with the case.

Today, April 23, 2007, you published a story on the front page of the Borderland Section above the fold about this case. It was all about how the special prosecutor declined to pursue charges on Alberto Ocegueda. You have a picture of Ocegueda wiping a tear from his eye and you spend quite a bit of ink talking about how traumatized he was by the ordeal.

You published, "...district attorney Jaime Esparza, citing a conflict of interest, referred the case to a special prosecutor, local lawyer Chris Bradley."

Why did you not include the following information in your article?
-Why was there a special prosecutor?
-Why did you not mention that Ocegueda had just been put on the first time offender’s program for DWI right before he was arrested?
-Why did you not, in either one of your two articles, mention that Alberto Ocegueda is the brother of Jaime Esparza's personal secretary Amy Lujan (Amelia Ocegueda).
-Why did you not mention that this is the same Amy Lujan who Esparza pays an approximate $30,000 "supplement" to on top of her county salary?
-Why did you not mention that on all of the jail records and court documents Ocegueda’s name is spelled as “Osegueda.”
-Who misspelled his name and why? To make it harder to find the records perhaps?
-How did your newspaper know the correct spelling when on official records it is spelled wrongly?
-Why did you not mention what happened with the case between the arrest in November 2006 and the dismissal on April 13, 2007?
-How long did that case sit on Esparza's desk before it was passed on to Chris Bradley as a special prosecutor?
-How long did Chris Bradley have the case before she declined it?
-Did a Judge order the arrest of Ocegueda for the molestation charges? That’s usually the way it goes? If so, why did you not publish what the judge was basing the arrest order on? On what evidence did the judge base his finding that there was probable cause that molestation had occurred? That would be a simple matter of looking at the arrest warrant.
-Why not publish who Chris Bradley is?
-Why didn't you publish that she was a long time employee of Jaime Esparza and a supervisor in his office before going into private practice?
-Why didn't you publish that she is the wife of former police union president Chris McGill?
-Why didn't you publish that Chris McGill was a co-defendant of D.A. Esparza's in the Nancy Hollebeke Civil rights suit which was another sexual assault case that got dumped by Esparza’s office and that case also coincidentally was an allegation of rape against a family member of an employee of Esparza’s?
-Why didn’t you mention that I was a lawyer who sued Chris McGill in that civil rights trial and now I am running against Esparza?
-Why didn't you publish that Ocegueda's defense attorney, Joe Spencer, is Esparza's political supporter, best friend, and campaigner and perhaps campaign treasurer?
Why didn't you mention that Joe Spencer's sister, Dina Spencer, works for Esparza and did and may still run the "Victim's Assistance Program?"
-Why didn't you mention that various members of Alberto Ocegueda's family work for Esparza, not just his sister Amy Lujan?
-Why didn't you mention that I had filed court documents on April 6, 2007 which alerted Esparza to the fact that I knew about the Ocegueda case lying around getting old and it was not less than one week later that it was dismissed?
-Who asked Chris Bradley to handle the case? Esparza's office? Because that is what he did recently on a case I am handling. I got him off because he had a conflict of interest and then he turned around and had his office contact a special prosecutor when he should have done nothing, absolutely nothing. Once you have a conflict you simply tell the judge and then completely remove yourself from the case. You don’t get to appoint your successor. Or do you think you should?
-What happened here? Your own article said “…Esparza…referred the case to …Chris Bradley.”
Did you ask Bradley who called her about handling the case?
Why didn’t you ask her?
Did you ask her who she was with her when she got sworn in?
-Does the little girl's family know about the above?
-Do you think they might want to know?
-Do you think other parents who have children at Ocegueda’s new school, Elfida P. Chavez Elementary School, might want to know about this?
-If you were a parent would you? How would you feel about a newspaper editor who didn’t tell you about the facts surrounding this kind of case and you had a female child at Ocegueda’s new school?

Do you think that family member's of the District Attorney's close staff should get special treatment, especially on child molestation charges? Does any of this concern you? Do you think that leaving this information out of your article is a normal way to do business?

Sincerely,


Theresa Caballero

Cc: Socorro School District; tc4da.com blog readers

In the Friday, April 20, 2007, edition of the Border Observer, www.borderobserver.com, in the article entitled "Restore Rule of Law" which reads like an article that I have written but which is really the product of a Q&A that took place at a recent speaking engagement I had, is a scathing indictment of what is going on in this town and most especially with my opponent and how everything is tied in together. I highly recommend that you read it. There is an editor's note from the Border Observer that states, "District Attorney Jaime Esparza Was Invited To Also Submit His Views And Has Chosen To Do So At A Later Date." -Don't put any of your hard earned money on that and I'll tell you why.- You should know that I have never seen my opponent submit himself to questioning on his conduct and his policies. He has never answered despite his very public proclomations in Commissioner's Court and at City Council that he will "...answer questions on the DIMS program anytime, anywhere and in any court room."

First of all why didn't Esparza answer to the Border Observer this week on his DIMS? Why couldn't he subject himself to questioning? I did.

During the Nancy Hollebeke Civil rights trial, Esparza literally fled to the other side of the state where they were having a hurricane to not be available for questioning. Let me tell you what he did. The trial was set for September 2005 and had so been set since the beginning of the summer. Since Esparza had directed the botched investigation of Ms. Hollebeke's rape allegations against EPPD officers Albert Machorro, Jr. and Jose Garcia and since Albert Machorro's father was an employee of Esparza's at the time Esparza preferred charges on Ms. Hollebeke which resulted in her incarceration, an act which gave birth to the whole civil rights lawsuit, he knew he was going to be a witness, a STAR witness, at the trial. In fact I subpoenaed him and he was properly served to appear in court along with many other witnesses. All of the other witnesses showed up, police officers, lawyers, lay people, etc., except for Esparza. ESPARZA IS THE ONLY WITNESS WHO DIDN'T COME. He sent his lawyer to court the first day of trial to ask the judge (federal Judge Harry Lee Hudspeth) if he could get out of his subpoena because his buddies in the Texas County and District Attorney's Association were going to give him an award, which probably consisted of a plaque and a balloon, for his stellar service and he needed to go to Corpus Christi to pick them up and BE GONE THE ENTIRE WEEK, the week of trial. What a coincidence! The balloon was more important than the civil rights trial that he had caused. I objected to Esparza being released and said that he should be treated like any other witness and stay and wait until I was ready to call him but the judge thought otherwise (this is the same judge who was recently quoted in the Austin American Statesmen who said that he did not think it was unethical for him to receive free football tickets from the University of Texas and then preside over cases where the University was a party). Esparza had to literally travel 800 miles away to avoid answering what he knew was coming. The main question was how in the world did you order the arrest of my client for reporting that she had been raped by two cops, one of whose father is your employee?

I have subponaed Esparza to court on numerous occasions to answer for his DIMS program and to explain why my clients ended up in jail without seeing a magistrate and with a bond given to them by the DA's office instead of by the magistrate. It is the same scene every time. Esparza sends his attorney from the County Attorney's Office (yup, you get to pay for this) who argues to the judge the flavor of the day, "Mr. Esparza has to leave town. Mr. Esparza just received the subpoena. Mr. Esparza is too busy. Mr. Esparza has to go the airport to pick his wife up. Mr. Esparza has no knowledge of the case..." With the exception of one judge, the other judges, one of whom is just a plain old coward, say "Oh yes Mr. Esparza, of course you are released and do not have to testify."

So where is Esparza going to "answer for his conduct and his policies." The El Paso Times is not going to ask him any hard questions because for one they don't understand the issues and for two they don't care. The tv stations have to work with sound bites and this is not a sound bite story. The judges aren't going to make him answer because he is special and he doesn't have to aswer to subpoenas like the rest of us.

Why doesn't Esparza answer for his record? Is it too much to ask the incumbent to answer for his record? Does Esparza avoid answering because he doesn't feel he has to answer to the voter anymore because after all he has been the DA for 14 years and at the end of this term it will be 16 years and he doesn't have to answer to anyone, ever, for anything? Or is it because he is too much of a coward to answer? Or is it a combination of both? When will it be the right time and place for Esparza to answer for his conduct? What indeed is his problem with answering? Don't fall for his tricks and subterfuges of "I'll answer next time." Learn this lesson now, there is never a next time. He is the incumbent, make him answer to you now.

I recently spoke before a group on my campaign. The Border Observer and El Diario (which publishes the Border Observer) had at least three of their reporters in the audience. The members of the general public present as well as the reporters asked me questions on my views on city and county issues. The Border Observer put my answers together and published an article in today's border observer which reads as though I had written the piece. It is a very informative article. What is most interesting was how well versed the audience was on the issues. My statements are really my answers to their many and good questions. Click on www.borderobserver.com for the article and then go to the article entitled "Restore Rule of Law."

If you have any questions for me, be sure and post them here.