WEBB COUNTY PROSECUTOR'S TRIAL TO FEATURE ODD CAST OF CHARACTERS

LAREDO — An ex-elementary school principal is pitted against a bounty
hunter, a disgraced former judge and a heroin addict in a much-anticipated
corruption trial set to start here today.

But it's the former educator, now a Webb County assistant district attorney,
who's accused of a crime. Court documents show federal prosecutors have
lined up a motley crew of witnesses to put him away in a case that's kept
this border city abuzz for months.

Ramon Villafranca, 58, is charged with conspiracy and three counts of
bribery. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Villafranca is accused of taking money in exchange for offering leniency to
defendants charged with drug possession.

The latest in a 5-year-old crackdown on public officials around South Texas,
the case is seen as a showdown between federal and local authorities and has
fueled months of speculation.

The focus on public corruption cases by U.S. prosecutors netted the 1998
convictions of then-Starr County Sheriff Gene Falcon, five of his jailers
and a justice of the peace who took part in a bail bond kickback scheme.

Despite that success, prosecutors often have faced skeptical jurors, and
their efforts have sometimes backfired.

In one 10-month stretch at the federal courthouse here in 1996 and 1997,
juries acquitted eight of nine public officials or law enforcement officers
accused of official corruption, embezzlement or drug trafficking, court
records show.

They included Hidalgo County Judge J. Edgar Ruiz and a handful of elected
officials cleared of taking kickbacks on purchases of supplies for that
county.

In the latest case, James DeAtley, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
of Texas, said he'll be satisfied to let a jury decide Villafranca's fate.

"My office has the responsibility to present the evidence and we will,"
DeAtley said last week.

"The jurors, when ultimately selected and sworn to take an oath, vote their
conscience," he said.

Laredo attorney Octavio Salinas II said Villafranca has never taken a bribe
and is ready to defend himself.

"It's a big change for him to go from putting people away to being falsely
accused," Salinas said. "He's ready for his day in court. He's ready to put
this behind him."

U.S. District Judge John Rainey will preside over the trial. Opening
arguments are expected today.

Prosecutors intend to make their case with bank records, photographs and
dozens of secretly made audio recordings, court records show.

But they also are expected to use testimony from Ruben Garcia, a former
state district judge, who in a plea bargain late last year admitted that
while working as an attorney he paid bribes to an unnamed Webb County
prosecutor.

One of Garcia's former clients, admitted drug addict Roy McCoy III, also
pleaded guilty, saying he gave Garcia $8,000 as part of a payoff to
Villafranca.

Another key to the case may be the testimony of Jesse Salas, a contentious
former lawman who posed as a bounty hunter while secretly working as an
informant for the FBI since March 1996.

Physical evidence also will be presented. On a warm Sunday night in May
1998, when much of Laredo was home watching the Chicago Bulls battle for the
Eastern Conference championship, a small army of FBI and Internal Revenue
Service agents raided the offices of Webb County District Attorney Joe
Rubio.

Armed with search warrants and hand trucks, the agents loaded more than
5,000 criminal case files — as well as bank records, daily planners and even
phone books — into a U-Haul rental truck in the courthouse parking garage.

Agents were interested in documents linked to 142 criminal defendants. They
also had singled out 14 other people for intense scrutiny, including
Villafranca and Rubio, the search warrant shows.

Agents hit several other locations, including the offices of a justice of
the peace, a bail bondsman and the home of Rubio's father.

Neither Rubio nor his father have been charged with a crime.

According to the rumors that percolated through local taquerias, bars and
over the Internet, the feds had either struck a mother lode of corruption or
soon would fall on their faces.

"Late-night phone calls, midnight meetings, unholy alliances forming," read
one message posted to a Laredo-area Internet bulletin board shortly after
the raids.

Meanwhile, Villafranca has remained on the payroll as a prosecutor, but has
been assigned administrative duties pending the trial's outcome.

"We're trying to support him and be sensitive about the whole issue," said
Monica Notzon, chief prosecutor for the district attorney's office.

"It's going to be strange for us; having one of our prosecutors on trial,"
she said. "It's hard to fathom the consequences."

The government's witnesses have a checkered past.

A law enforcement officer in Atascosa County, Salas outraged his colleagues
in 1992 when he accused fellow members of a drug task force of corruption. A
state grand jury didn't believe him and indicted him for perjury, but the
charges later were dropped.

As for Garcia, he was indicted in October 1981 by a Dimmit County grand jury
for misapplication of county funds, accused of padding an expense account.

The charges were dropped when a witness refused to testify, but Garcia was
disciplined by a state judicial board.