The Tony Ford Case and Jaime Esparza

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?