'Do you know who I am?'

EDINBURG - McAllen's former mayor allegedly begged police to let him go as they placed him in handcuffs last week.

Worried that a drunken driving arrest would tarnish his reputation, Leo Montalvo reportedly asked officers, "Do you know who I am?" and pleaded with them not to "ruin (his) several years of public service," according a police narrative filed in his case.

But in the Rio Grande Valley - where several politicians, civil servants and police officers face similar charges each year - Montalvo's concern for his public esteem might have been premature.

For the well-connected, well-respected and well-to-do, getting out of a drunken driving charge is hardly atypical, a Monitor analysis of court records shows.

Since 2004, at least 20 high-profile people have been charged with of driving while intoxicated. Some of their cases are still winding their way through the court system years after the initial arrest. Others were halted abruptly before a single court hearing.

But no matter what circumstances landed them behind bars, nearly all their cases ended in dismissal. Only three of these high-profile drunken driving cases have resulted in convictions.

Of these cases that have been resolved, 73 percent were either tossed out by judges or closed following a district attorney's refusal to prosecute. That dismissal rate is more than three times higher than the 23 percent rate for all the DWI cases in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy counties over the same period.

"I see it all the time," said Melissa Montgomery, victim services manager for the South Texas chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "Justice is not blind. Social status and the color green make a difference."

It's difficult to talk in generalities about what might lead to the dismissal of a DWI case, Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra said. Each case is different and comes with its own set of facts.

But prosecutors routinely dismiss DWI cases for reasons as varied as an arresting officer's failure to show up to court or a successful court challenge of evidence collected during the traffic stop.

Other factors - such as a commonly employed pretrial diversion program that grants first-time offenders a probationary period to clean up their acts - can also result in dismissal.

But it never hurts to also have a little goodwill with those handling your case, several Valley defense attorneys said. While many alluded to backroom deals for well-connected DWI defendants, none would discuss their allegations on the record.

In 2005, District Attorney Guerra publicly questioned defense lawyer Al Alvarez's close relationship with several Hidalgo County judges after one of them blocked testimony from arresting officers in two DWI cases involving the lawyer's brother.

"I think Al has too much influence on some of the judges," Guerra said at the time. "It raises a lot of questions."

Alvarez - who has handled hundreds of DWI cases in his career, as well as criminal cases involving defendants as notable as Hidalgo County Commissioner Sylvia Handy and Hidalgo County Precinct 5 Constable Eduardo "Walo" Bazan - denied that the dismissal of his brother's cases had anything to do with special preference.

However, a good working relationship with court and law enforcement officials is important for any defense attorney, he said.

"A lawyer is essentially the same as a lobbyist," Alvarez said. "He's lobbying the court on your behalf."

Guerra cites another reason for the high DWI dismissal rate for public officials:

"There's more at stake for the politicians, the judges, the officers," he said.

With reputations and sometimes jobs on the line, high-profile defendants are often willing to devote years and thousands of dollars to defending themselves against DWI charges.

State District Judge Rudy Delgado nearly lost his job following a 2002 DWI arrest that spawned a grand jury investigation and indictments on additional charges of resisting arrest and misusing official information.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct suspended the 93rd state District Court judge for nearly two years while the case played out in court. A Cameron County judge later threw out the DWI count, arguing that Guerra's office had taken too long to bring the case to trial. The other counts were also dismissed and Delgado's suspension was lifted nearly five years after his initial arrest.

It's too early to tell what might happen in the case of Montalvo, the former McAllen mayor. Police in that city charged the 66-year-old June 7 after he wrecked his car near the intersection of South Ware Road and Expressway 83 and failed a sobriety test, according to police reports.

His arrest came eight years after his son, Michael, faced a similar DWI charge.

At the time of the incident, the then mayor told The Monitor, "The enforcement of such laws must be carried out regardless of who is involved."

His son's case was dismissed seven years later.
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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.