CITY COMMISSIONER CESAR DE LEON RESIGNS, DEMOTED FIRE CHIEF ELIZONDO PLACED ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE

By Juan Montoya
Specifically, De Leon is said to have been told by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz that he might have a conflict with District Judge Rene de Coss and the Brownsville Police Dept., among others, after comments he made in a secretly-recorded conversation with Armando Magallanes, Carlos Elizondo, and Joe Barrientes were leaked to social media.

Apparently, Saenz believed that as city commissioner, De Leon could not handle cases in municipal court and could not represent defendants who had been arrested, questioned or charged by officers with the Brownsville Police Dept. It came down to a choice between his profession and the position of city commissioner.

Elizondo was also placed on administrative leave by the city today. We have been told that apart from the violations of city policy regarding private ambulance service in the city, auditors have found even more transgressions linked to him personally. In a commission audit, it was discovered that the dispatchers were steering transfer patients to a company associated with Elizondo's friends and that he had personally ordered the calls at least four times to be steered to them. The audit found that the city had lost some $62,000 as a result.

Additionally, there is an ongoing investigation into a criminal complaint filed by the firefighters' union charging him with Theft by a Public Official after they discovered that there was more than $8,000 missing from the group's Political Action Committee bank account. Bank statements indicate the withdrawals were made by Elizondo from ATM machines over two years. 

The recordings are said to have been made by Elizondo, who was trying to get De Leon to protect him in the city and to withhold the release of an audit done by the commission's Audit and Oversight Committee. The secret recordings were leaked to social media after Elizondo was demoted as fire chief and the audit report was made public soon after that. 

Rather than endanger his law profession, De Leon opted to resign and remove that conflict and focus on his legal work.