Valerie Ortiz Sanchez
Posted on 01/16/2008 8:44:16 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
HARLINGEN(Texas) — What started as a traffic stop Monday turned into something far from routine for Harlingen police.
Police discovered the driver had accumulated 76 outstanding warrants and $18,986 in unpaid fines and court fees dating back to 1998, Sgt. John Parrish said.
The warrants are for traffic violations and parking tickets, police said.
Valerie Ortiz Sanchez, 31, was arrested on charges of having expired car registration, no insurance and driving with an expired license, according to an arrest report.
Sanchez appeared Tuesday before Municipal Court Judge Valerie Garcia, who set bond at $1,000 for driving without a valid license and $1,500 as a minimum payment on the warrants, Parrish said.
Garcia dismissed some of the warrants because they dated back so many years, Parrish said, which left Sanchez with a total of $15,696 in fines and fees.
Parrish said it is unusual, but possible, for someone to have that many warrants.
“Of course that’s not the norm, but it has happened before,” Parrish said.
In order for a police officer to make an arrest on a municipal court warrant, the officer needs a hard copy of the warrant, Parrish said.
If a person with a warrant is pulled over after the court’s normal business hours, on a holiday or a weekend, the officer may not be able to obtain the hard copy, he said.
Also, if the person had been arrested in the past and made arrangements with a municipal court judge to pay the fines, and then not followed through with the payment arrangement, the warrants would be reissued, Parrish said.
Part of the total amount Sanchez owed included additional fees such as those for failing to appear in court, Parrish said.
During the arrest Monday, a police officer stopped Sanchez in the 2300 block of East Harrison Avenue after noticing the vehicle she was driving had an expired registration sticker, according to the arrest report.
Sanchez identified herself to the officer as Valerie Sanchez, and the officer asked the dispatcher to run her name, the arrest report states.
The dispatcher then asked the officer to verify the driver’s name or middle name and the officer learned her married name is Ortiz, the report states.
Then it became apparent that the woman had the 76 outstanding warrants, according to the report. Her license was suspended Dec. 16 after she was charged with driving while intoxicated, according to the report.
Sanchez will remain at the Cameron County jail or at the Harlingen jail until she can come up with the bond amount and the minimum payment, Parrish said.
The judge will decide whether Sanchez will be taken to the Cameron County jail if she does not make the minimum payment of $1,500, Parrish said.
However, the judge could decide to allow Sanchez to get credit for time served at the county jail or may require her to stay at the Harlingen jail until the minimum amount is paid, Parrish said.
If Sanchez is able to make the $1,000 bond and the $1,500 payment, she will be released and expected back in court at a later date to make arrangements for the remaining amount of money owed, Parrish said.
Valerie Ortiz Sanchez
Good luck on that.
Valle Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Ooooo... $1,000 bail! That will certainly make her show-up for court after skipping 31 times. Just how fracking stupid are these judges, anyway?
“Let this be a strong message for would-be scofflaws and lawbreakers: Seventy-five outstanding tickets is the kind of unacceptable behavior that we will tolerate for ten years, at most...”
Did she sob like Hillary???
Excuse me? “No woman is illegal!”
Guilty but with mitigating circumstances...
Get her into orange jump suit, give her a trash bag and get her out on the freeway picking up beer cans for ten years!
Driving with an expired license and driving while suspended are totally different offenses. DWS is supposed to be serious.
I can't believe they're going to let this lady walk after she pays only $2,500. Meanwhile, a jaywalker or litterer probably got a six-month sentence in the same court.
>Valerie Ortiz Sanchez
Municipal Court Judge Valerie Garcia
I doubt that her face impressed the lady Judge.
But perhaps the similarity in names may have ...
What this emphasizes, for me, is that there are citizen hispanics and law-breaking hispanics. By coincidence they even have the same name.
I've said for years that what Bush had to do if he wanted the legal Hispanic vote for Republicans was to clearly distinguish between Hispanic citizens and Hispanic illegals. Regretably, in the end he did not. Now he has probably managed to lose the legal hispanic vote as well as the illegal vote, which the Dems are already profiting from.
I don't know if Sanchez is an illegal immigrant, but she's certainly an illegal operator of a motor vehicle. No license, no insurance, no recourse for the victim if she has an accident, which seemingly is only waiting to happen.
But the other Valerie is a judge, and hopefully a good citizen. Yes, I know, there's a lot of bad judges out there, but it's not because they're hispanic, it's because they're judges, and we seem to be reaching a low point on judges in many parts of the country.
Lois Lane
But there is no such thing as an illegal woman. After all, don’t you all know that they are all good citizens who take jobs that Americans won’t do./s
76 outstanding warrants? Elwood Blues had 172 warrants (116 parking violations and 56 moving violations) when the police almost got him. I wonder if the cops in this case had SCMODS?
Right, because it’s not like part of her current fines are for failure to appear or anything like that. Clearly just a misunderstood upstanding person, probably driving just to get to work.
*rolls eyes*
Damn, the cop is lucky the judge didn't throw him in jail. Who's going to mow the yards now??
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