Posted on 01/22/2004 12:01:29 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
50 bench advertisements and three signs urge voters not to vote for him.
A copy of the controversial $100,000 check paid to state Rep. Jaime Capelo by lawyer Rene Rodriguez is now available for viewing on billboards.
The Good Government Political Action Committee, established by a local law firm in November, paid for a billboard near the Lipan Street exit of the Crosstown Expressway. The billboard attacks Capelo, who is running for re-election in the 34th District.
The PAC also paid for billboards with the same message on Interstate 37 at Corn Products Road and Texas Highway 44 near the airport. There are also about 50 bus bench advertisements sponsored by the PAC. Billboard advertisements cost about $1,000 a month in Corpus Christi, and bench ads run about $40 to $50 a month.
The black, white and red sign reads, "Capelo's $100,000 kickback, Vote No to Jaime Capelo." Between the words is a gargantuan, grainy copy of the check with a red arrow to Capelo's name and another to the dollar figure.
Capelo did not return calls Wednesday.
The Watts Law Firm is listed with the Texas Ethics Commission as the controlling entity of the committee. Lawyer Mikal Watts, who did not return calls Wednesday, is listed as the person who appointed the treasurer of the political action committee, according to commission documents.
Watts, along with many other trial lawyers, has been at odds with Capelo for authoring legislation in Austin that limits the amount of money that plaintiffs can collect in medical malpractice civil actions.
But for Watts the issue became more personal late last year around the time that Capelo and Rodriguez sought successfully to remove Watts' mother, Judge Sandra Watts, from court proceedings related to the $100,000 payment.
Capelo filed a police report in October accusing Mikal Watts of making threats toward him. Capelo alleged that Watts threatened to ruin him politically and that Watts said he had $30 million at his disposal to do it.
Capelo and Rodriguez are involved in three civil cases related to the $100,000 check: a racketeering case in federal court and related matters in district court and a county court at-law.
The $100,000 has been described in court papers as a kickback for bringing a settlement in a refinery lawsuit in which Capelo represented the refinery and Rodriguez represented plaintiffs suing the refinery.
Rodriguez and Capelo have denied any wrongdoing and said the check was returned. They have described it as a payment for a medical malpractice referral. They have declined to disclose the malpractice case.
Capelo also has said that the kickback allegation is retaliation by plaintiffs' attorneys for his sponsorship of the legislation limiting lawsuit awards.
One of Capelo's two Democratic opponents, Nelda Martinez, said she had nothing to do with the billboards and has "no idea who is responsible." The fact that someone decided to put it up proves that questions exist in the minds of the voters, she said.
Asked repeatedly if she was happy to see the billboard sprout, she responded: "My focus is getting my message out."
The other Democratic candidate in the March primary election, Abel Herrero, also stuck with his campaign theme and talked about working families. Asked about the billboards, he responded:
"I am indifferent to why it is out there or what it is going to do. Those issues are his problems. I am not interested in them."
Terry Arnold, the lone Republican candidate whom the Democratic primary winner will face in November, said he did not want to talk about the billboard, which he said he knew nothing about.
With all the politicking going on around her and above her, Elva Barrera-Martinez, who owns the monument company under the billboard, said she has no say in the words and images that hang over her Crosstown shop.
An undecided voter, Barrera-Martinez said that she has heard people say the towering message is "kind of cute" while others were not too happy with it.
To her, she said, "It has to be ugly politics."
Contact Tim Eaton at 886-3794 or eatont@caller.com
The allegation going around Corpus is that it was not a finder's fee, but a kickback. Capelo is a defense attorney and he got the check from a trial lawyer shortly after he settled a large case ($millions as I recall) with that trial lawyer's firm. The allegation is that the trial lawyer paid a $100,000 kickback to get Capelo to talk his client into taking the deal and paying big bucks to the trial lawyer. Now that the story is out and Capelo is never going to be in a position to (allegedly) sell out a big client again, the rest of the trial lawyers in Corpus want him out of the Texas Legislature.
I'm not saying it happened, but that is what the allegation is. This story does a piss poor job of explaining the background.
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