Liars, Cowards, Crooks and Lynch Mobs vs. Rachel Quintana

It is difficult to tell you the story and convey how wrong all of this is. To the lay person who has no experience with the courts or to the reporter with limited experience, it would be hard to discern what is normal procedure and what isn’t, who is lying and who isn’t. But I will try and tell you what happened to my client City Representative Rachel Quintana as best as I can. This is a story about liars, cowards, crooks and hysterical lynch mobs. It is a story that illustrates why I am running and how rampant the corruption in this town is. It is a story about a bad District Attorney, Jaime Esparza, a bad City Manager, Joyce Wilson, and a bad Chief of Police, Richard Wiles. It is also a story about a community that either watches bad things happen to other people or actually joins in the feeding frenzy and most say nothing. It is a story about two El Pasos. It is a story about what happens to the haves and the have nots and the haves who seem to never have enough.

First I want to explain something that has been a discussion in the press, on the radio and in classrooms. I am an attorney in private practice. While I do a variety of work, the lion’s share of my practice is devoted to criminal defense work. I represent and defend people who have been accused of a crime. It is something I enjoy doing and I am proud to do it. As we all learned in fifth grade social studies, everyone in this country is entitled to a defense and everyone is innocent UNLESS proven, not until proven, but UNLESS proven guilty.

Some people have made the comment that I am against corruption but now I am defending a “corrupt politician.” The inference is that because I am defending someone accused of “corruption” (which by the way is not the accusation against my client) that I am actually for corruption. Now try to follow this flawed argument. I am against murder and rape but I defend people accused of murder and rape. By this contorted logic, if I say I am against murder and rape and then I take a case defending someone who has been accused of murder and rape I am now supposedly for murder and rape. This makes no sense. Just two months ago I represented someone Esparza wrongfully accused of murder. After I proved in court that Esparza had wrongfully accused my client of murder, he was forced to dismiss the case. -- I have also represented people who were guilty of their charges. They too need a zealous defense. The sixth amendment of the US Constitution says, "In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the assistance of counsel for his defense." The Constitution also guarantees trial by Jury to determine guilt, not trial by Joyce Wilson and a corrupt newspaper that will act as judge, jury and prosecutor. This is our system. Today is Veteran’s day. Soldiers have given their lives to uphold this system. We commemorate the sacrifices our soldiers have made on Veteran's Day but based on some of the comments I have heard this week we seem to have forgotten as a society what our soldiers died for and what our system is about. This is not about defending a "corrupt politician." This is about upholding and standing strong for our basic values even in the face of angry, ignorant mobs stirred up by El Paso Times editor Dionicio Flores, Chief of Police Richard Wiles, Joyce Wilson and their henchmen.

As you read this story, ask yourself if you are going to be part of the lynching mob?

People who condemn an individual without due process, people who think someone should admit to a crime, people who think that a defense attorney should parade her client out and join the lynching mob and violate her attorney's oath by judging and condemning her clientl instead of protecting and defending her client are either immensely ignorant of our legal system and the Constitution or they are liars and trying to mislead their listeners/readers. Listen carefully to who is saying what. Remember what you know is the true role of a true attorney. The role of an attorney is to represent her client whether the client is you, Joe Blow, or the state. When I represent and defend Rachel Quintana I am doing what I swore to do as an attorney. When Esparza
1) dismisses the DWI charges against Dick Poe or
2) when he lets his friend, former mayor Joe Wardy go after being found with a loaded gun at the airport, or when
3)he refuses to investigate charges of aggravated sexual child molestation against his secretary's brother, Alberto Ocegueda currently a teacher at an El Paso public grade school (the same secretary, Amy Ocegueda Lujan, whom he gives $45,000 of tax payer money to supplement her $30,000 county salary and whom he takes to Mexico City on "business"), Esparza is not doing his job as an attorney. He is not properly representing the people of the State of Texas. He is subjecting the citizens of El Paso to certain dangers and he is creating two El Pasos.

Who is Rachel Quintana? She is a young woman and the mother of a five year old daughter. She decided to run for city rep in district five when the seat came open. It was Presi Ortega’s District. Presi Ortega however, had other plans for his district. He wanted to hand pick his own successor, so he backed and was campaign manager for Jimmy Suerken, who it was believed would carry on Presi Ortega’s votes on higher taxes, higher fees, and the plan to take private land downtown by force of emminent domain if necessary and turn it over to a private group, the Paso del Norte Group for “development.” One would have thought that Presi Ortega would be ashamed to support higher taxes since he himself owed a whopping $350,000 to the IRS. This was reported only in the Mexican El Diario. How come? Where was Joyce Wilson's indignation for law abidingness on that one?

The Paso del Norte Group, a private land hungry group, had as a member and its head, multi-millionaire Bill Sanders who is coincidentally, the father-in-law of city representative Robert O’Rourke. In Spanish this is called "la Palanca."

Furthermore and most importantly, it was reported in the news that member and SPOKESWOMAN for the Paso del Norte Group (PDN) was none other than our very own city manager Joyce Wilson. In English we call this, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

No one in the press, not one single, solitary person, thought it odd or even worthy of a raising of the eyebrow that Joyce Wilson would be leading the charge in her capacity as city manager to acquire privately owned downtown land by force if need be and also simultaneously represent the PDN group that wanted the land as its spokeswoman poised to benefit from the land grab. Also in English legal/ethical parlance, we call this a conflict of interest.

The only people who really grasped these machinations were those of us who recognize the dangers of the current climate at city council and its hair trigger stance on eminent domain, those of us who value the long standing American principles of strong property rights, and more specifically, the downtown land owners themselves who were shocked to find out that they were the hunted prey and they were about to lose their land. These landowners quickly realized that running to the City for help from the PDN brought them straight into the loving arms of Joyce Wilson. It was worse than a bad nightmare. This was real.

So the land owners organized and tried to fight back. Leading the charge for the property owners were/are the Kimmelmans, who own Starr Western Wear and Union Fashion and the Rosenbaums who own at least one downtown flea market and El Paso-LA Limousine Service downtown. They hired an attorney; they had rallies; and they participated in the election process by donating to candidates who opposed the Joyce Wilson/PDN land grab.

Enters, young mother, concerned citizen and Fed Ex employee, Rachel Quintana, candidate for city council against higher taxes and the PDN.

To be continued.