Woman claims she was paid to drop charges against Zavaletta

A complainant in the 1988 indictment against district attorney candidate Peter Zavaletta has resurfaced, with new claims against the local lawyer.

Ninfa Moncada, whose claims 20 years ago led to Zavaletta’s arrest, now says that she was paid to drop charges against him.

In a sworn affidavit dated March 10, 1989 Moncada states she doesn’t want to prosecute Zavaletta and won’t testify if brought to court on the matter of $20,000 she said Zavaletta spent from her children’s trust fund.

“I herewith, under oath, state that I do not desire to further prosecute Peter Michael Zavaletta, and if called as a witness will decline to testify,” this affidavit said. “I would further state that I have not been offered anything to induce me to execute this affidavit nor have there been any threats of harm.”

On Friday of last week, Moncada signed a new statement contradicting at least a portion of the 1989 testimony.

“They (Zavaletta and others) kept asking me and pressuring me to dismiss the complaint and they would give me a check for $20,000. I thought about it real hard because I needed the money for my children because I was broke,” Moncada wrote in a statement dated Feb. 8.

The document, signed by her and the former detective on the case, Joe V. Garza as a “witness,” is the true account of events, Moncada insists.

“I’m not lying,” she told The Brownsville Herald. “I wasn’t lying then and I am not lying now” about the trust fund.

She says Zavaletta paid her $20,000, instead of redepositing it into the trust account, in exchange for her cooperation.

Zavaletta vehemently denies the allegation today, as he did 20 years ago, sticking to recent statements he’s made about the case that was dismissed.

During recent appearances at political forums and in campaign ads published in this newspaper, he called Moncada “the disgruntled ex-wife” of a former client who dropped the charges because she was mistaken in the first place.

“I have a clean criminal record. I am not a crook,” Zavaletta said at Monday’s debate with District Attorney Armando Villalobos.

Zavaletta represented Richard Moncada in divorce proceedings against Ninfa Moncada. In their settlement, $20,000 was to be placed in a trust fund for the couple’s two children.

Two counts of misapplication of fiduciary funds were brought against Zavaletta, charging he placed the money in his office operating account instead. They were dropped when the Moncadas abandoned their claims.

“It (the dismissal) was based on that affidavit that Ed Cyganiewicz, who at that time was a felony prosecutor, asked Judge (Daryl) Hester in open court to dismiss the charges against me,” Zavaletta said. “I was absolved of that charge and it was dismissed.”

Asked Monday night if he believed the original complainants would continue to corroborate his account, Zavaletta said “Yes.” On Tuesday morning, he seemed surprised to find that was no longer the case.

“I don’t know why” she’s coming forward with these allegations, he said and added, “I flatly deny that.”

Zavaletta, who is challenging Villalobos for the Democratic nomination in this race, declined to comment further, because of prior commitments, but said he would be available in a couple days. He referred further comments to Ron Armstrong, who served as his attorney in 1988.

Armstong said he knows nothing of the meetings that Moncada said occurred between her and Zavaletta at her home. However, he said he remembers hearing Moncada testify twice in court that she was “not paid to dismiss the criminal charges” against his client.

“What she said was she was not paid a dime to dismiss,” he said.

Moncada explained that she dropped the charges and signed what she now says is a partially false affidavit because she was offered money that she needed to feed and clothe her family. The 1989 affidavit, she points out, does not recant her original complaint against Zavaletta, only informs the court that she no longer wished to pursue the matter.

“I was pressured to sign a statement to dismiss the complaint against Peter Zavaletta because I was told that I would get a $20,000 check after I would sign the statement and not before,” she said.

Moncada reports that she cashed the check at a bank that was once on Elizabeth Street, “where the old Public Utility Board use to be.” The bank at that time was First National Bank of Brownsville.

She maintains that she never gave Zavaletta permission to “take the money that was entrusted to him for my children by the courts.”

The 19-year-old affidavit began to appear in campaign ads for Zavaletta and Villalobos, each presenting a different side of the story. These prompted Moncada to come forward after two decades, she said.

“If he did this to me, what would he bring to the District Attorney’s Office?” she said and recalled the moment she decided to change her story.

One of Zavaletta’s advertisements asserts there was “no victim” connected to the indictment. “I am the victim,” she said, “not him.”

At Monday’s candidate forum, Villalobos said he believed Moncada had been “paid off” to drop the charges and challenged Zavaletta to a polygraph test with the woman, “to see who’s telling the truth.”

It’s the second such challenge issued to the candidate.

Retired detective Joe Garza, who said he is not affiliated with either candidate, also suggested Zavaletta take a polygraph.

Garza, an investigator in the 1988 lawsuit, said that while working the case, he found several checks reportedly written and signed by Zavaletta that had been drawn from the children’s trust fund, including numerous checks made out to Pizza Hut.

“For some reason these checks stayed in my mind,” Garza said.

Garza and Moncada claim that in conversations with Moncada, Zavaletta admitted to taking the money and pleaded with her to not pursue the charges.

“He admitted to have taken the money from my children’s trust fund but for me not to proceed with the case and that he was very sorry and for me to find it in my heart to forgive him and that God was going to reward me,” Moncada wrote in her Feb. 8 statement.

Garza said his findings, which include audiotapes of these alleged conversations, were turned over to the District Attorney’s Office, Benjamin Euresti Jr. The Herald has asked to review the tapes, reportedly in possession of the District Attorney’s Office. The request is pending.

Villalobos said the case, which has not been expunged, could be re-opened if there is evidence that a crime occurred, which would require the subpoenaing of bank checks from the account in question.

Although the statute of limitations may have run out regarding Moncada’s allegations against Zavaletta, they could still apply to her children’s’ cause since they were minors at the time the incident was said to have occurred.

A criminal charge could be filed if authorities are able to determine that Zavaletta paid the money to Moncada rather than returning the money to the children’s trust fund, Villalobos said.

“I trusted him,” Moncada said. “… it bothered us when this came up, that he wasn’t telling the truth.”

There are no other charges reported against Zavaletta, according to a Herald records check. He also has no sanctions on record from the State Bar of Texas.