Former McAllen mayor's DWI case filed

EDINBURG — Prosecutors said they filed the driving while intoxicated case of former McAllen mayor Leo Montalvo on Monday, seven months after his arrest.

Meanwhile, the DWI case of Jesse Contreras, presiding judge of the 449th state District Court in Hidalgo County, has yet to be filed in Cameron County — and prosecutors did not offer an update on its status.

Because the charges against the two officials are misdemeanors, prosecutors have two years after their arrests to decide whether there's enough evidence to prosecute them.

Montalvo was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated after a collision June 8, 2009, along Ware Road in McAllen. Police said the former mayor smelled of alcohol and slurred his words as he explained to officers that no one involved in the crash was hurt.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked officers, according to the police report. “Please, sir, don’t ruin my several years of public service.”

The case remained unfiled by Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra until Monday. The Monitor inquired about Montalvo’s case on Friday, when court records showed it had not yet been filed.

Cases such as Montalvo’s hung in limbo while other DWI arrests of lesser-known officials publicized by local media were assigned to courts more quickly.

For instance, McAllen police Officer Alex Alvarez was arrested on a DWI charge on July 5, 2009. His case was filed in Hidalgo County court on July 31, 2009. The case is still pending in Hidalgo County Court-at-law No. 2, after Guerra filed a motion this month to reconsider and reopen evidence that had been suppressed in the case.

In another case, Mission police Officer Martin Flores Villarreal was arrested June 28, 2008, after allegedly driving an unmarked Mission police vehicle while intoxicated. That case was assigned to Hidalgo County Court-at-law No. 2 on July 31, 2008, and is set to go before a jury on March 16.

Guerra, for his part, said he had waited to file Montalvo’s case so he could review it himself — unlike most other cases, which are reviewed by his assistant prosecutors. When asked why the case had not been filed until Monday, he said “it was a mistake” to wait on it.

“We had a miscommunication,” Guerra said of his assistant prosecutors. “We file those cases usually within six months.”

Montalvo became McAllen’s first Hispanic mayor after he defeated longtime leader Othal Brand in 1997. The victory marked a symbolic change in power locally — something Montalvo downplayed at the time.

A woman who answered the telephone at Montalvo’s house Monday said the former mayor would not discuss the drunken driving case with the media.

Contreras’ case has remained under consideration by Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos’ office since September 2008.

Contreras, a Mercedes municipal judge at that time, was arrested on South Padre Island on Sept. 21, 2008. He was elected to the 449th state District Court later that year.

Police responded to a disturbance involving a patron at the Coral Reef Lounge early that Sept. 21 morning but learned the person had already left, according to Monitor archives. Officers obtained a vehicle description at the bar, and Contreras was pulled over about three miles south of the business with a female companion inside his vehicle.

Asked Friday about the status of Contreras’ case, Villalobos’ spokesman, Jason Moody, asked for an information request in writing. That request was submitted to his e-mail address. Moody has not responded to subsequent inquiries regarding the case’s status. Villalobos has until this fall to decide whether his office will prosecute Contreras’ DWI case.

Contreras could not be reached for comment on his cell phone Tuesday afternoon.

A Monitor analysis of Hidalgo County court records after Montalvo’s arrest revealed that since 2004, at least 20 local high-profile people had been charged with driving while intoxicated. Some of the cases are still pending in local county courts years after the initial arrest, while others were dropped without any hearings in court.

Of the resolved cases, 73 percent were dismissed by judges or closed when a district attorney refused to prosecute. The dismissal rate was 23 percent higher than all DWI cases in Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy counties in the same period.

Other local public officials have been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving since Montalvo’s arrest — notably, Hidalgo County District Clerk Laura Hinojosa, who was arrested in December.

Guerra, the Hidalgo County district attorney, said his office continues to review evidence in Hinojosa’s case, adding that he has made no decision on when or whether it will be prosecuted.

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Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.