MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — The former mayor of this border city has gone on another of his delusional rants claiming that the seizure of assets by the U.S. government is nothing more than a media attack. The former mayor called it “abhorrent” that officials from another country were auditing the government of Mexico.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Randy Crane issued a judgement against former Matamoros Mayor Erick Agustin Silva Santos. In the ruling, Crane granted the complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the seizure of all the funds belonging to Silva Santos at NT Butterfield & Son Bank in Bermuda. Crane also allowed for the forfeiture of a house in Brownsville, Texas, that had been purchased with illicit funds.
In late 2014, Erick Silva was criminally indicted on money laundering and bribery charges and is currently considered a fugitive by the U.S. Department of Justice. The allegations in the criminal indictment accuse Silva of having taken cash bribes from contractors looking to do business with his city as well as ransacking its coffers. Some of that money was deposited in the Bermuda account and other U.S. bank accounts which was used to purchase real estate in Texas.
This reporter traveled to Matamoros for a news conference where Silva called the charges against him nothing more than a dirty media war aimed at keeping him from running for other political positions.
Following Crane’s recent ruling against him, Silva took to Facebook to denounce the charges as nothing more than foreign efforts to slander his character.
“It is lamentable that now governments, politicians and public officials of out autonomous and sovereign country (Mexico), from this moment on are going to be judged and audited by North American authorities, it is abhorrent and inconceivable,” Silva said in his Facebook message.
In his Facebook profile, Silva claimed to be a man that faces challenges head on and that he has nothing to hide.
“I will keep fighting with my lawyers to enforce justice, reason, truth and respect for human rights,” the politician said forgetting to mention that he is a wanted fugitive.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.