While most Cameron County residents felt that Cameron County Juvenile Probation employee Gilberto Escamilla deserved to serve time in the penitentiary for his role in the theft of more than $1.2 million in fajitas from the Darrel B. Hester Juvenile Probation facility in San Benito, it is evident that the majority thought the 50-year sentence secured by prosecutors was overkill.
Escamilla was sentenced to the 50-year prison term after he pleaded guilty to the charge of theft by a public servant. He admitted that – as the original indictment stated – he had engaged in the illegal activity from December 2012 until the scheme was discovered on August 2017.
Visiting judge J. Manuel Bañales sentenced Escamilla to 50 years after Ass. D.A. Peter Gilman asked the judge to assess "five decades" to send a message to that whoever is in charge of a public trust will be punished to the full extent of the law for violating it.
Defense attorneys Reynaldo Garza "Trey" III and Gustavo Elizondo, thinking they had a five-year plea agreement, could only stare in disbelief as Bañales handed down the sentence. But they din't protest either.
Additionally, Bañales ordered Escamilla to pay restitution in the amount of: $1,251,578.72, plus a fine of $10,000.00 and court costs to be assessed.
Gilman waxed poetic to the media and said that the DA's Office would not stand for theft by a public official and said that thefts by public servants would result in long sentences like this. Was there a reason why the DA's Office didn't want to take the court to trial?
There are a lot of loose ends in this story, As far as the Luis V. Saenz's DA's Office and Gilman are concerned, the final chapter has been closed on the case even if the public is out $1.2 million. Saenz blamed the county auditor – his nemesis Martha Galarza who caught him double dipping into his gas cards – to tighten the controls and wonders why the scheme was not detected before.
But if, as he says, there were at least two other purchasers involved, why were they not indicted as well? Could it be because they might be local business owners who supported Saenz in his past races? Or perhaps local elected officials? The public needs to know. Just as a buyer of stolen goods bears some of the blame for the crime, so do the purchasers of the fajitas from Escamilla. Did he sell the meat to them at discount prices?
And what happened to the purchase-order controls in the juvenile probation department as well. Isn't a purchase order required with at least two signatures to approve any purchase from vendors? Who was the other signer who voted to approve the purchases? The department director, perhaps?
And didn't anyone see when the annual department's budget was put together that there were monthly purchases of more than 800 pounds of fajitas – which were not served to juvenile inmates – in their line items?
Obviously, other people were in the caper.
Who did Escamilla kill to receive this kind of sentence? Murder is usually 20 to 25 years unless the prosecution botches the case.
Gilman knows a thing or two about botched trials. He was the prosecutor whose lunch was eaten by defense attorney Ernesto Gamez in the killing of county corrections guard Ivan Reyes by his fellow guard Marco Antonio Gonzalez. Gilman lost that case despite overwhelming evidence that Gonzalez first shot Reyes in the chest and then later in the head as he was trying to crawl out of the house? That was "self defense?"
Them during sentencing for a nine-count indictment of aggravated assault of a public servant in the six-hour standoff that resulted and included an attempted murder, kidnapping and retaliation, he agreed to a jury charge that limited Gonzalez's sentence to five years for all the offensesto run concurrent..
As far as the long sentences for public servants who steal, wasn't it Gilman's own step daughter who was caught stealing from the adult probation office and allowed to plea to restitution in exchange for pleading guilty? Where's the long sentence there for violating the public trust?
Saenz, too, has overlooked some cases where blood is involved. Joey de la Garza, who stole and estimated $110,000 from hospice patients in Olmito never spent a day in jail. He, too was allowed to pay restitution and told to sin no more.
And no, Saenz wasn't DA then, but de la Garza just happened to be District Clerk Aurora de la Garza son, Saenz's sister in law. At the time, Saenz was a favorite special prosecutor for then-DA (and now convicted and incarcerated) Armando Villalobos.
The list goes on and on.
Saenz did nothing to prosecute Brownsville mayor Tony Martinez after it was revealed that he sat in on discussions and the vote to sell himself (and sign over to himself) a property sold for delinquent taxes that just happened to be next to his law office that he needed for more parking space to sell to the Rio Grande Valley Rural Legal Aid office. Public trust? Long sentences? Where?
In fact, during Saenz's bid for election, he made his announcement at Martinez's office and held his victory party there.
Escamilla, 53, will probably not serve the 50 year sentence. He will probably be in his 80s when he emerges from prison. But while he pays for his crime, there are others just as guilty who aided and abetted the crime who will get off scot free because of the Cameron County DA's Office highly selective prosecution.