REMEMBERING CONVICTED CON MAN CARLOS QUINTANILLA'S WORK IN BROWNSVILLE

 

It was 10-1/2 years ago when Carlos Quintanilla, a con artist with a RICO felony conviction under his belt for bilking G. Heileman Brewing Company of $800,000, came slithering into town.

At the time, the notorious flim flam man had significant other baggage; an alleged arrearance of $85,000 in child support, $12,000 worth of hot checks and liens for "theft of property" attached to his residence at 421 S. Dwight in Dallas.

As we reported back in 2011:

It was Quintanilla, the charismatic Hispanic flim flammer, representing a rich anglo with a 4 day old airline to sell, Fly Frontera.  

The City Commission almost couldn't accept the deal fast enough, with then Mayor Pat Ahumada acting like a giddy school girl trying to convince her parents the bad boy was really "nice."  

The proposed deal was so upside down for the city as to be almost laughable:  first 23 tickets NOT sold guaranteed by the city at $135 per ticket.  That would incentivize the fledgling airline to fly empty planes as they would use less fuel and Brownsville would pay anyway.

Fly Frontera also asked for $1,500,000 up front for licensing, fuel, spare parts, etc.  

The quickly thrown together company didn't even have any planes, but Ahumada kept repeating himself when some citizens became aware of Quintanilla's multi-paged criminal record:  "Don't blame the messenger!  Carlos Quintanilla has nothing to do with the deal.  He's just the messenger!"  

Yeah, right.  Is that why the company's business address is 421 S. Dwight Ave., Dallas, TX, the address of Quintanilla's home?(Quintanilla is still fuming about the breakdown of this con, threatening  to finalize his lawsuit against me for my tiny part in snuffing out the scam.  He describes himself as "putting the finishing touches on a lawsuit agains(sic) Mr. Barton for his killing of Fly Frontera")

Actually, it was a number of Brownsville citizens who stood tall at the City Commission meeting against this dumbass proposal:  Craig Grove, Dino Chavez, Teresa Saldivar, Zeke Silva, and Laura Miniel among others.

Quintanilla returned in 2012 as front man for Ted Parker of Healthsmart, who was being sued by BISD for $14.2 million for insurance overbilling.  

Quintanilla started a Political Action Committee to fund candidates for the school board who would vote to retract the suit, Cata Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria.

Eventually, Presas-Garcia, Longoria, Christina Saavedra and Enrique Escobedo agreed to settle the law suit for a mere pittance.

The con man had done his job.

Milk Project with Carlos Quintanilla, Cata Presas-Garcia

Next, Quintanilla turned his attention to a "charitable" con, although as Bobby Wightman-Cervantes explained in the Brownville Voice dated 2/12/2012, Quintanilla's name was not attached to this con:

"Carlos Quintanilla remains relevant because he is promising to work with BISD Trustee Cata Presas-Garcia to bring to Brownsville his flim flam claims about feeding children. 

The bogus nature of his claims are now part of his bankruptcy proceedings. The entire feeding program was a con wherein at best Quintanilla was table server of food paid for by the people of Texas. 

He now wants to sue Texas for failing to pay him $30,000 for being a humanitarian.

His partner in the feeding program is Bruce Carter, a fellow convicted felon. 

According to court documents Carter and his organization is facing a default judgment for $508,387 for non-payment for the milk used by Carter and Quintanilla to feed the children. 

Quintanilla is not a named party because like I said, Quintanilla appears to have been merely a table server for Bruce Carter."