Yesterday, February 19, 2009, the El Paso Times, under the byline of Gustavo Reveles Acosta, reported that my client Abraham Lopez was facing “two counts of giving federal investigators false statements…” I called the newspaper to tell them that was absolutely incorrect. Armando Durazo, whom I spoke to before 6:00 p.m. last night, told me that he was not going to correct the record. Today Mr. Durazo, who is the editor of the Borderland section, ran yet another incorrect story on the case saying the jury was still out. The truth is the jury had come back yesterday at 2:30 pm deadlocked and a mistrial was declared right then and there. The jury was out of the building before 3:00 pm. And yet when the El Paso Times went to press last night Mr. Durazo printed that the jury was out “deliberating.” Here are the details of Mr. Durazo and Mr. Shugert’s attitude regarding the truth.
When I called the El Paso Times yesterday in the morning at around 10:00 a.m. I got an answering machine telling me to press “0″ for an operator. I did and I got another message saying that that mailbox had not been set up yet. I called back and asked for the newsroom and told the lady who answered that I wanted a correction to be run. She sent me to the food critic who was very nice but unable to help. I called back and again I got a series of messages. It appears that the few employees who are left on the rolls have to take unpaid vacation so that the paper can make ends meet.

I did finally get a Mr. Ed Shugert who is the editor of the “Business” section. He told me that he was in charge. I told him that my client was not charged with “gun smuggling” as the title said but that he was charged with “illegal exportation” (smuggling is in fact another statute that the government chose not to proceed under.) He laughed into the phone. He thought that was very funny. I then told him that my client was not charged with lying to federal investigators as also stated in the article. He started talking over me and telling me that he would not help me and that I could just call Armando Durazo when he got in at two. I told him that I did not know if I would be out of a courtroom at two to make the call and that if it wasn’t over his head I would like to leave the corrections with him. He told me, “It is over my head.” I left the corrections with him anyway.

I told Mr. Shugert that my client was under no circumstances facing counts of lying to federal agents. He told me in a sneering, mocking tone that “the article was not a legal document.” He was proud of that, whatever he meant by it. Did he mean that the article did not have to be accurate? What did he mean by that inane statement?

I called Mr. Durazo in the afternoon and left him a message. He called me back before six and told me that he was NOT going to make the corrections. He said that the article did not say my client was “charged” with lying to federal agents but rather he was facing “counts” of lying to federal agents. I told him that “counts” are the same as “charges.” He said that it did not matter and that he would not run the corrections.

So for those of you who believed Mr. Durazo, the editor, when he published that Mr. Lopez has two counts of lying to federal investigators, you have been misled and that that is a lie. And when I called to tell Mr. Durazo that his published information was incorrect he said he would not correct it.

And what I thought was even more telling about Mr. Durazo’s sloth as a newspaper man was that he had me, the defense attorney, on the phone and he never asked me what happened with the jury. I would have told him that the jury had been deadlocked and dismissed and that the trial was over. Oh no, Mr. Durazo did not have enough intellectual honesty or curiosity to ask the simplest of questions and today he ran another yet incorrect story telling his readers that the jury was still out. Some of those twelve men and women on the jury read that this morning and laughed at poor Mr. Durazo thinking what stale and incorrect information he was passing on to the few readers he has left.–On the other hand, Channel 26 ran the news before six las night that the jury was dismissed and the trial declared a mistrial. Mr. Durazo ought to watch channel 26 for the news.

Mr. Durazo and the laughing Mr. Shugert don’t know the difference between facing counts of lying to federal agents and not facing counts of lying to federal agents. It is no wonder that they don’t think it is wrong to tell their readers that a man is facing counts he is not facing. Nor is Mr. Durazo embarrassed when he tells an Ivy League educated, 14 year trial veteran attorney that counts are NOT the same as charges. Mr. Durazo, that mental giant, was not the least bit embarrassed to argue to me that in fact counts are different from charges. Yes siree, that is what the man actually stated. Nor is Mr. Durazo embarrassed to tell his readers that the jury is out when the thousands of channel 26 viewers knew before they sat down to dinner last night that the jury was back and the trial was over.

Do you think Mr. Durazo and the laughing Mr. Shugert are going to be laughing and haughty all the way to the unemployment line that is long with stupid newspaper reporters? Do you think when they are at home on their unpaid furloughs because their paper has a history of hiring stupid reporters and is now going down the tubes that the thought might cross their minds that maybe they shouldn’t be laughing and running incorrect stories about a person when the person’s freedom hangs in the balance and that just maybe they should run correct stories and that maybe because they are the way they are is why their paper can’t pay them anymore? Or do they think even when their paycheck is smaller they still can’t figure it all out.

In the event that Mr. Durazo and the laughing Mr. Shugert, as limited as they are, have figured out that maybe they should be sending out resumes, I hope that whatever poor sucker is tasked with checking them out for possible employment, does a Google search on them and sees that Mr. Durazo thinks NOTHING whatsoever of publishing that a man is facing counts that he is not facing and Mr. Shugert actually states that, “it is over my head” while he laughs into the phone. And between the two of them they never ask, “Hey, by the way, has the jury come back?” Nope, not those two winners. Would you hire them?