Firstly, today has been a good day for the good guys and a real bad day for bad District Attorneys and bad television reporters, i.e Ashlie Hardway of channel 7 KVIA, ABC affiliate. Judge Pendergrass, from Del Rio, Texas ordered that Alberto Ocegueda's arrest records for Aggravated sexual assault of a child were WRONGFULLY expunged and ordered that the documents I had distributed be reinstated into city, county and state files. Also read on to see how poorly Channel 7 reporter Ashlie Hardway researched her stories on this issue, what she omitted in telling you and how poorly she did on the witness stand under cross-examination.
Here is the sequence of events. In February 2008, during my campaign for DA, I published the arrest records for aggravated sexual assault of a child of Alberto Ocegueda, aka Alberto Osegueda, Albert Ocegueda, Albert Osegueda who happens to teach at an SISD school. A six year old female child had accused Ocegueda of penetrating her vagina. Mr. Ocegueda is the brother of District Attorney Jaime Esparza's personal secretary Amy Ocegueda Lujan. This is the secretary Esparza pays over $84,000 a year of county taxpayer money to and takes to Mexico City with him on business.
Because Jaime Esparza is a close friend of Alberto Ocegueda, he declined to handle the case personally but did however hand pick the special prosecutor, his former longtime employee Chris Bradley to "prosecute" the case. Chris Bradley looked at the case and declined it. She said there was not enough evidence. She never took the case to a grand jury. (This is a fact that would become important later on in this story.) As a result, Mr. Ocegueda was never formally charged for the offense or had to appear in court. He was a free man.
During the last week of the campaign, Ashlie Hardway at Channel 7 ran two stories stating that the alleged pedophile's records had been expunged and that I had violated Ocegueda's expungement order by distributing his arrest records. She said that I could be prosecuted for violating the expungement order. She accused me of a crime on tv in the middle of early voting. Where did she get that misinformation? She did all of this with a straight face. People believed her.
There is something seriously wrong with a District Attorney and a tv reporter using an obviously illegally gotten expungement order to publicly accuse a person of violating the law by violating the EXPUNGEMENT order. What Ashlie Hardway intentionally did (but she will argue that she did not do this out of malice but only out of stupidity-but nobody could be this stupid) was fail to tell her viewers that a member of the public does not have to obey Expungement orders. How can they? They are not served with them. They don't know about them. And when she was on the stand I asked her if she had proof that I had been served with the expungement order and she said she had no proof. Furthermore, despite what the expungement statute clearly and unequivocally states, Ashlie Hardway never once pointed out that Ocegueda's arrest records COULD NOT HAVE BEEN legally expunged in the first place. The statute of limitations has to run before an uncharged arrest can be expunged (Ocegeuda was arrested but never formally charged). The statute of limitations for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a child is 20 years after the child reaches the age of 18 or, in other words, 32 more years in this case. So how in the world did Ocegueda get an expungement less than two years after his arrest? Instead of pointing out that Ocegueda got an expungement ILLEGALLY and public records were destroyed as a result of that ILLEGAL expungement which would lead any other neutral reporter to say, "Hey wait a minute-Do we have a cover up here? How did this happen? Who was the judge who signed this? Why did Ocegueda's attorney say in his petition that the case had been dismissed when it hadn't. It had been DECLINED. Why did Joe Spencer state in his petition that Ocegueda had been charged by an "information" when he was never charged? Why did Ocegueda swear to this "misinformation" in the petition?" Not Ashlie Hardway at channel 7. Oh no, she did the reverse and ran a story accusing ME of crimes.-- So much for neutral reporting.
Stuart Leeds and I did some creative lawyering (I have never known this to have been done by anyone ever before anywhere). We took the unprecented following actions: We filed a petition to UNdo the Expungement of Alberto Ocegueda's arrest records. Our grounds were that his petition to expunge had been wrongfully filed by Ocegueda's Attorney, longtime best friend of DA Esparza, Joe Spencer (whose sister also works for Jaime Esparza and who was in charge of Victim's assistance for many, many years and is who is also a friend of both Amy Ocegueda Lujan and Chris Bradley). We pointed out the main misrepresentations in Ocegueda's petition to the judge.
I called Ashlie Hardway who had come with her attorney, Luther Jones, to the stand. (If you recall from two blogs ago, she had been summoned to court before and wilfully disobeyed the judge's order and did not appear) Here was what was salient about Hardway's testimony (you can get a copy of her transcript at the court.)
-In doing the stories, Hardway never once asked for the contact information of the child victim. I asked her why she didn't do that and she said because "they usually never give it out, so I didn't ask."
-I told her that I had gotten the child's name from a simple open records request.
-While she was on the stand, I showed her school records prepared by the counselor at the child's school which documented that the child's parents (the Olveras) were shocked that their daughter's case had been abandoned and that they had to hear about it FROM THE NEWS.
-I asked her if Hardway knew about the family's position of being shocked and disappointed and she said she didn't.-- I guess she thinks that this is irrelevant. I as an attorney in private practice and not as a reporter for an ABC affiliate was able to handily get these and other documents.
-Since Hardway was running a story accusing me of violating the expungement statute, I asked her if she had read the expungement statute and she said she had. I asked if she had seen a copy of the expungement order and she said she had. I then asked her how was it that since she had seen both the law and the order she FAILED to report that Ocegueda's records could never have been legally expunged given that 32 years had not yet passed. She said that was "irrelevant."
-On July 30, 2008 Hardway had done another report on this story where she said Mr. Ocegueda had been "acquitted." I asked her what acquitted means. She said it means the case was "dismissed." A reporter covering the courts should know the difference between "acquittal" and "dismissal" because the difference is vast and carries different legal consequences. "Acquittal" means you are found NOT GUILTY by a judge or a jury. In other words that you have had a trial. "Dismissal" means the prosecutor moved to dismiss and a judge signed it before trial or any judge or jury could make a decision as to guil/innocence. In order for there to be a "dismissal" the case has to be formally charged and in a court. Ocegueda's case was not even dismissed since his case was never in a court. It was simply DECLINED by Chris Bradley. Hardway is an example of the caliber of reporters that KVIA has and is one good reason why voters in El Paso are so poorly informed. People watching Hardway would be led to believe that poor Mr. Ocegueda had a trial and was found not guilty when instead a special prosecutor merely dumped the case by a three line letter and it never saw the light of day of a courtroom. That little girl's voice was never heard by a judge or a jury. Hardway doesn't know the basic terms of art. This is extremely dangerous in a reporter, especially in the hands of a vindictive reporter who has an axe to grind
-Overall, Hardway's demeanor on the stand was bad. She was combative and hostile, defensive and non-responsive. One neutral observer of the hearing said of Hardway's miserable performance on the stand, "Hardway looked mad. She's mad about something." Another observer said to me "Hardway is too stupid to hide how mad she is and how much she hates you." Another observer just said, "She's stupid. I have told everyone that Ashlie learned a new word today. She learned what acquitted means while on the stand. The problem is she also doesn't know what "dismiss" means either."
In the end, without equivocating or blinking an eye, Judge Pendergrass, over the strenuous objections of Joe Spencer, Ocegueda's now very, very wrong attorney, granted our petition and ordered that Alberto Ocegueda's arrest records had been wrongfully destroyed and that they should therefore be reinstated into the public's file.
Will Ashlie Hardway do a story on this INCREDIBLE change of events showing that I have been vindicated and I won? Will channel 7 do a story and correct the misinformation they put out to the public. Will channel 7 do a story on how Ocegueda's records were WRONGLY DESTROYED by an illegal order rendered by Judge Angie Barill. Will Channel 7 tell you how a good judge reversed all of these shenanigans and righteously ordered back into the record Ocegueda's arrest records, using my copies to do so, the very ones Hardway criticized me and accused me of a CRIME for disseminating?
What to think of a reporter who says nothing when she sees that public records have been wrongfully destroyed? What to think of a reporter who publicly condemns and vilifies the private citizen who tries to right a wrong and bring the records to light?
There was one other member of our illustrious press present, supposedly a female from the El Paso Times who left before the judge made his ruling! So what is it she is going to report if anything? I guess it's only news for Dionicio Flores when Esparza and his minions and filth prevail.
More later.
Here is the sequence of events. In February 2008, during my campaign for DA, I published the arrest records for aggravated sexual assault of a child of Alberto Ocegueda, aka Alberto Osegueda, Albert Ocegueda, Albert Osegueda who happens to teach at an SISD school. A six year old female child had accused Ocegueda of penetrating her vagina. Mr. Ocegueda is the brother of District Attorney Jaime Esparza's personal secretary Amy Ocegueda Lujan. This is the secretary Esparza pays over $84,000 a year of county taxpayer money to and takes to Mexico City with him on business.
Because Jaime Esparza is a close friend of Alberto Ocegueda, he declined to handle the case personally but did however hand pick the special prosecutor, his former longtime employee Chris Bradley to "prosecute" the case. Chris Bradley looked at the case and declined it. She said there was not enough evidence. She never took the case to a grand jury. (This is a fact that would become important later on in this story.) As a result, Mr. Ocegueda was never formally charged for the offense or had to appear in court. He was a free man.
During the last week of the campaign, Ashlie Hardway at Channel 7 ran two stories stating that the alleged pedophile's records had been expunged and that I had violated Ocegueda's expungement order by distributing his arrest records. She said that I could be prosecuted for violating the expungement order. She accused me of a crime on tv in the middle of early voting. Where did she get that misinformation? She did all of this with a straight face. People believed her.
There is something seriously wrong with a District Attorney and a tv reporter using an obviously illegally gotten expungement order to publicly accuse a person of violating the law by violating the EXPUNGEMENT order. What Ashlie Hardway intentionally did (but she will argue that she did not do this out of malice but only out of stupidity-but nobody could be this stupid) was fail to tell her viewers that a member of the public does not have to obey Expungement orders. How can they? They are not served with them. They don't know about them. And when she was on the stand I asked her if she had proof that I had been served with the expungement order and she said she had no proof. Furthermore, despite what the expungement statute clearly and unequivocally states, Ashlie Hardway never once pointed out that Ocegueda's arrest records COULD NOT HAVE BEEN legally expunged in the first place. The statute of limitations has to run before an uncharged arrest can be expunged (Ocegeuda was arrested but never formally charged). The statute of limitations for Aggravated Sexual Assault of a child is 20 years after the child reaches the age of 18 or, in other words, 32 more years in this case. So how in the world did Ocegueda get an expungement less than two years after his arrest? Instead of pointing out that Ocegueda got an expungement ILLEGALLY and public records were destroyed as a result of that ILLEGAL expungement which would lead any other neutral reporter to say, "Hey wait a minute-Do we have a cover up here? How did this happen? Who was the judge who signed this? Why did Ocegueda's attorney say in his petition that the case had been dismissed when it hadn't. It had been DECLINED. Why did Joe Spencer state in his petition that Ocegueda had been charged by an "information" when he was never charged? Why did Ocegueda swear to this "misinformation" in the petition?" Not Ashlie Hardway at channel 7. Oh no, she did the reverse and ran a story accusing ME of crimes.-- So much for neutral reporting.
Stuart Leeds and I did some creative lawyering (I have never known this to have been done by anyone ever before anywhere). We took the unprecented following actions: We filed a petition to UNdo the Expungement of Alberto Ocegueda's arrest records. Our grounds were that his petition to expunge had been wrongfully filed by Ocegueda's Attorney, longtime best friend of DA Esparza, Joe Spencer (whose sister also works for Jaime Esparza and who was in charge of Victim's assistance for many, many years and is who is also a friend of both Amy Ocegueda Lujan and Chris Bradley). We pointed out the main misrepresentations in Ocegueda's petition to the judge.
I called Ashlie Hardway who had come with her attorney, Luther Jones, to the stand. (If you recall from two blogs ago, she had been summoned to court before and wilfully disobeyed the judge's order and did not appear) Here was what was salient about Hardway's testimony (you can get a copy of her transcript at the court.)
-In doing the stories, Hardway never once asked for the contact information of the child victim. I asked her why she didn't do that and she said because "they usually never give it out, so I didn't ask."
-I told her that I had gotten the child's name from a simple open records request.
-While she was on the stand, I showed her school records prepared by the counselor at the child's school which documented that the child's parents (the Olveras) were shocked that their daughter's case had been abandoned and that they had to hear about it FROM THE NEWS.
-I asked her if Hardway knew about the family's position of being shocked and disappointed and she said she didn't.-- I guess she thinks that this is irrelevant. I as an attorney in private practice and not as a reporter for an ABC affiliate was able to handily get these and other documents.
-Since Hardway was running a story accusing me of violating the expungement statute, I asked her if she had read the expungement statute and she said she had. I asked if she had seen a copy of the expungement order and she said she had. I then asked her how was it that since she had seen both the law and the order she FAILED to report that Ocegueda's records could never have been legally expunged given that 32 years had not yet passed. She said that was "irrelevant."
-On July 30, 2008 Hardway had done another report on this story where she said Mr. Ocegueda had been "acquitted." I asked her what acquitted means. She said it means the case was "dismissed." A reporter covering the courts should know the difference between "acquittal" and "dismissal" because the difference is vast and carries different legal consequences. "Acquittal" means you are found NOT GUILTY by a judge or a jury. In other words that you have had a trial. "Dismissal" means the prosecutor moved to dismiss and a judge signed it before trial or any judge or jury could make a decision as to guil/innocence. In order for there to be a "dismissal" the case has to be formally charged and in a court. Ocegueda's case was not even dismissed since his case was never in a court. It was simply DECLINED by Chris Bradley. Hardway is an example of the caliber of reporters that KVIA has and is one good reason why voters in El Paso are so poorly informed. People watching Hardway would be led to believe that poor Mr. Ocegueda had a trial and was found not guilty when instead a special prosecutor merely dumped the case by a three line letter and it never saw the light of day of a courtroom. That little girl's voice was never heard by a judge or a jury. Hardway doesn't know the basic terms of art. This is extremely dangerous in a reporter, especially in the hands of a vindictive reporter who has an axe to grind
-Overall, Hardway's demeanor on the stand was bad. She was combative and hostile, defensive and non-responsive. One neutral observer of the hearing said of Hardway's miserable performance on the stand, "Hardway looked mad. She's mad about something." Another observer said to me "Hardway is too stupid to hide how mad she is and how much she hates you." Another observer just said, "She's stupid. I have told everyone that Ashlie learned a new word today. She learned what acquitted means while on the stand. The problem is she also doesn't know what "dismiss" means either."
In the end, without equivocating or blinking an eye, Judge Pendergrass, over the strenuous objections of Joe Spencer, Ocegueda's now very, very wrong attorney, granted our petition and ordered that Alberto Ocegueda's arrest records had been wrongfully destroyed and that they should therefore be reinstated into the public's file.
Will Ashlie Hardway do a story on this INCREDIBLE change of events showing that I have been vindicated and I won? Will channel 7 do a story and correct the misinformation they put out to the public. Will channel 7 do a story on how Ocegueda's records were WRONGLY DESTROYED by an illegal order rendered by Judge Angie Barill. Will Channel 7 tell you how a good judge reversed all of these shenanigans and righteously ordered back into the record Ocegueda's arrest records, using my copies to do so, the very ones Hardway criticized me and accused me of a CRIME for disseminating?
What to think of a reporter who says nothing when she sees that public records have been wrongfully destroyed? What to think of a reporter who publicly condemns and vilifies the private citizen who tries to right a wrong and bring the records to light?
There was one other member of our illustrious press present, supposedly a female from the El Paso Times who left before the judge made his ruling! So what is it she is going to report if anything? I guess it's only news for Dionicio Flores when Esparza and his minions and filth prevail.
More later.
on August 13, 2008, 5:08 pm
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