INFORMANT IS ON THE SPOT IN WEBB TRIAL

LAREDO -- Is he an investigator fighting to clean up the justice system,
or a professional liar and snitch?

The question frames the high-stakes debate over whether a key
government witness in a local corruption trial is credible.

Jesse James Salas has spent four days on the witness stand here in the
federal case against five men linked to the Webb County district
attorney's office.

Relying on sometimes inaudible tape recordings, assistant U.S.
attorneys have used conversations between Salas and two defendants to
illustrate what they say was case-fixing involving staffers in the Webb
County prosecutor's office.

The defense counsel pointed to the same conversations and offered a
different view, saying the tapes show Salas leading the deal-making as
a way to keep his FBI paycheck.

"Your job as a snitch is to go around lying, building up confidence in
people," said Luís Antonio Figueroa, lawyer for accused county
investigator Juan Alfonso Rodríguez.

"Only as part of my job as an undercover informant," Salas replied.

Salas is the federal government's star witness in a case alleging that
five men working for or linked to the Webb County prosecutor's office
used their access to solicit at least $200,000 in bribes.

Assistant U.S. attorneys say that between 1992 and 1998, the men took
money in exchange for promises to reduce or dismiss criminal charges in
40 drug, weapon and drunken driving cases.

The accused include José Marcelino Rubio Sr. and Carlos Manuel Rubio,
respectively the father and brother of District Attorney Joe Rubio.

Rubio is not accused of wrongdoing and maintains he knew nothing of any
alleged foul play around his office.

Also on trial are two investigators from the prosecutor's office, and a
bail bondsman, Jesse Castañeda.

For 2 1/2 days, U.S. prosecutors played more than 70 snippets of
conversations in the "Tex-Mex" Spanish dialect of the region. Laced
with vulgarities and border slang, the recordings documented discussion
between Salas and two of the defendants about reducing or dismissing
criminal cases in exchange for cash.

But the defense counsel Tuesday hammered at Salas' own role in what
they called "a money game," asserting the witness initiated encounters
to trap the defendants and keep his job as a paid FBI informant.

Salas testified the FBI brought him to Laredo in early 1996 to
investigate rumors of corruption in the law enforcement and judicial
agencies in the region.

Acting on gossip about case-fixing in the county prosecutor's office,
Salas said that in February 1997, he went to a restaurant frequented by
the elder Rubio.

He seated himself near the then 72-year-old man, ordered toast, and
nonchalantly made a cell phone call. Salas said he pretended to be
talking to District Attorney Joe Rubio, the older man's son.

As intended, the senior Rubio overheard the fake call, and struck up an
acquaintance with Salas.

That contact led to a relationship in which, according to testimony,
Salas said he would act as a "middleman" between people facing criminal
charges and the elder Rubio.

Rubio would set the terms of payment, Salas testified.

In one instance, authorities say they hear Rubio on tape requesting
$15,000 to wipe away a client's drug-possession charges. According to
testimony, $5,000 each was to go to Salas, Rubio and "over there" --
which prosecutors said was a reference to the defendants working in the
district attorney's office.

Salas testified that at Rubio's urging, he struck up a similar
relationship with Castañeda, the bail bondsman, collecting thousands of
dollars from would-be criminal defendants and turning them over to
Castañeda and Rubio.

But under cross-examination by defense attorneys, Salas conceded he
never saw either of those men give that money to anyone at the county
prosecutor's office.

Rather, Rubio's court-appointed lawyer José Luís Ramos suggested,
Salas tried to "hook" the two men because it was in his own financial
interest.

Ramos pointed to Salas' $1,500 monthly FBI commission and to a contract
that will offer him a lump sum after this trial "depending on the value
of the information."

Figueroa suggested that perhaps it was Rubio and Castañeda who were
using Salas.

"Maybe you were being conned," Figueroa said Tuesday. "You were being
misled to think (Castañeda) was fixing cases, so you could send more
cases to him, and he could get money.

"Don't you think he was bragging, trying to convince you?"

U.S. District Judge George P. Kazen cut Figueroa off, telling him to
leave such musings for closing arguments.

With 30 more government witnesses yet to testify, the trial is expected
to continue for at least two more weeks.