Jaime Esparza Makes Up His Own Rules/Update

On September 11, 2007 there was an eight O'clock rally organized by parents in front of the Jane Hambrick elementary school which is off of Joe Battle and Edgemere. The parents had asked me to attend the rally. There were about 30-40 upset parents protesting the school's employment of Alberto Ocegueda who is now a coach there. They were, amongst other things, angry at Jaime Esparza because of how he had handled Mr. Ocegueda's prior charges of molestation of a child, charges that had been lodged against him by the parents of a six year old student at another school. Please see April 23, 2007 blog and the blog before this one. They said that because Mr. Ocegueda is the brother of Jaime Esparza's much beloved personal secretary, Amy Lujan, and because the case was sent to a special prosecutor late in the day, the case was mishandled and now we will never know the truth behind the allegations. They pointed out that if they had been arrested for child molestation, the outcome would have been very different.

Channel 26 was on site and interviewed some people. The reporter was very enthusiastic about the story. For some reason, however, the story never made it to the evening news. I wonder what happened. Did Esparza call in some chits?

While Stuart Leeds and I were at the eastside rally, attorney Sam Snoddy was appearing before City Council to speak to them about their decision to fund DIMS another year to the tune of $200,000. Mr. Snoddy delivered a concise, precise accounting of what DIMS is about, how bad it is and how it results in corruption like the Alberto Ocegueda case and others. Mr. Snoddy also mentioned how Esparza has money to pay his beloved Amy Lujan a $40,000 bonus on top of her county salary with tax payer money. He discussed how Esparza had lied to council when he told them that there was an AG opinion and a court opinion ruling that DIMS is "constitutional" which is NOT the case. He also pointed out how universally respected Sheriff Leo Samaniego had also called Esparza a "liar" over misrepresentations Esparza had made of the same DIMS program. Mr. Snoddy's speech was powerful and hardhitting. In the end, Mayor John Cook disgraced himself and the city by telling Mr. Snoddy to "Shut up! Or I will have you removed. Officers, remove this man." (Representatives Melina Castro and Rachel Quintana saved the day and opened a vote to give Mr. Snoddy more time). Mayor Cook has never been El Paso's best example of class (remember when he came out and said that he borrows his suits from the Union Fashion) but he usually keeps his cool. Cook's low-class outburst against a citizen in good standing and his bullying tactic of using the police against Mr. Snoddy (who is over 70 years old) left many wondering what Cook owed Esparza and what he had to hide?

Yesterday I was out working the jury pool, shaking hands and passing out my card. Here are some of the comments people had to say about Esparza: One woman said she was getting her bachelor's in Criminal Justice and she had done a paper on Esparza about six months ago. Her comment was "I didn't like what I found out about about him. He makes up his own rules. He doesn't follow the law. He's been there too long." One man said, "He covers for bad cops all of the time. He does favors for his friends." There were many, many other comments but those two captured the essence of what I was hearing.

As much as Esparza has tried to hide the facts, it appears that the old cat is out of the bag. The People have indeed figured out that he makes up his own rules and that he doesn't follow the law. Therein lies the entire problem.