Ahumada pleads not guilty to charges at trial's start

Minutes into his second trial Brownsville Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. pleaded not guilty to the charges filed against him.

“Your honor, I’m innocent. I plead not guilty,” Ahumada Jr.,  responded to the three felony charges against him as his retrial before a jury and visiting state District Judge Robert C. Pate got under way today.

Ahumada is charged with theft, abuse of official capacity, and misapplication of fiduciary property.

Ahumada deposited a $26,139 check that the city issued Oct. 22, 2008 to city vendor Tarsia Technical Industries Inc. of New York in his business account a few days later on Oct. 28.

The state has not been able to determine how the check got from the city finance office to the mayor’s hands.

“Somebody at City Hall made a mistake. The (bank) teller (who took the mayor’s deposit) made a mistake. The mayor made a mistake . . . but he’s the only one here,” Ahumada’s attorney Ed Cyganiewicz told the jury during opening statements.

In his opening statements to the jury, Special Prosecutor Luis Saenz didn’t provide a possible motive for the alleged crimes by the mayor.

But in calling numerous witnesses to the stand, the scenario offered during the first trial resurfaced: that the mayor might have been in need of money, had been awaiting approval of a $70,000 home equity loan partially held up because property taxes were owed and property insurance had to be obtained, and that the mayor spent about $6,000 of the $26,139 before the discrepancy was discovered.

Witnesses this morning included Tarsia President Joseph Tarsia, who flew in from New York Monday, a state auditor, bank officials with Compass Bank and First National Bank, and a city accountant.

This is the second trial for the mayor. The first ended in a mistrial on Oct. 15 last year after the jury deadlocked.

For more on this story read Wednesday's The Brownsville Herald.