By Juan Montoya
She was the judge who reviewed and approved City of Brownsville District 2 commissioner incumbent Jessica' Tetreau's lawsuit to keep challenger Caty Presas-Garcia off the May 4 ballot.
Simultaneously, 404th District Judge Elia Cornejo-Lopez recused herself from the case and handed it to the 197th District Court where visiting judge Robert Pate from Corpus Christi was appointed to hear it. (See graphic at right. Click to enlarge.)There was good reason for her recusal. Croejo-Lopez ran against Presas-Garcia in a BISD race, only to have her name removed based on state election code laws that state that a person's name may appear only once on a ballot. At the time the district judge filed against Presas-Garcia, Cornejo-Lopez was also on the ballot for reelection.
According to state law (resign to run), the moment an elected official files to run for another position, they automatically resign from the position they hold. That time, Cronejo-Lopez dodged a bullet and she was allowed to stay in office. She won reelection.
Presas-Garcia was also summoned for a deposition in Cornejo-Lopez's lawsuit against the Brownsville Independent School District where the judge alleges that the district violated their 14th Amendment rights of equal protection.
The litigation, filed Nov. 30, 2017 accuses BISD administrators and trustees of mistreating her children and retaliating against them after Lopez filed a grievance against the district. Specifically, Cormejo-Lopez charges that someone (perhaps a trustee, perhaps Presas-Garcia) leaked a report of the grievances filed against the district on behalf of her children.
But even after she had been personally involved in the handling of the Tetreau case through the courts, those attending Friday's hearing on Tetreau's motion for an injunction for the city to remove Presas-Garcia from the ballot were stunned to see her taking an active part in Tetreau's challenge. In fact, in several instances, Tetreau's lawyer, former BISD trustee Rick Zayas received written messages from Cornejo-Lopez telling him which questions to ask the witnesses and how to proceed.
Additionally, her husband Leon was allowed to tape the whole hearing with a video camera seated next to her. Cornejo-Lopez was sitting in the front row where Zayas would come to process server Billy Lopez to ask about the witnesses they had subpoenaed. She was seen handing Lopez notes instructing Zayas on which questions to ask the witnesses.
No instance was more telling than when Zayas called Presas-Garcia to the stand and when Zayas began to question her about her signature on the bottom of the petitions, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.
When Zayas looked lost and tried to reframe the same question, Presas-Garcia's attorney David Willis objected - and Pate sustained the objection - he looked to Cornejo-Lopez who hastily scribbled a question on a piece of paper and had Lopez pass it to Zayas. Zayas tried the same line of questioning again only to have pate sustain Willis' objection again.
Observers say that Cornejo-Lopez's direct involvement in the Tetreau-Presas-Garcia lawsuit runs in direct opposition to the Judicial Code of Conduct canons stating that a sitting judge has to be impartial to the parties in a case.
In this case, it was obvious that Cornejo-Lopez had a direct interest in the case and participated in its prosecution on behalf of one of the litigants, Tetreau.
To make matters worse, said some of those who attended the hearing, proof of her misconduct is readily available on tape in case anyone files a misconduct complaint against Cornejo-Lopez with the Commission on Judicial Conduct.
"All they have to do is subpoena the recordings made by her husband Leo and it will show she was taking an active part in the prosecution of Tetreau's lawsuit," they said.