Hsu Times Two: Democrat/Hillary Donor Accused of Cross-border Money Laundering
It wasn't much of a story at first. Back in October a rival accused Corpus Christi "attorney" Mauricio Celis of practicing law without a license, which is a felony in Texas. And you know,he seemed to be hemming and hawing about his bona fide lawyerness quite a bit.
Born in Mexico, raised in Rockport, educated in Monterrey, Mexico, and for a while apparently in the air-conditioning business, Celis seemed a South Texas version of the classic American success story.That and related folderol were good for a few quick jibes in the blogosphere, but never really reached Hsu-like proportions.But the story line took a bad turn on Sept. 28, when Thomas Henry, a Corpus Christi lawyer, appeared on a local television station and denounced Celis, 35, as a fraud.
"Mauricio Celis with the law firm of CGT Law Group International does not have a law license in the state of Texas nor does he have a license to practice law anywhere in the world," announced Henry in the paid TV spot.
... "He was wrong in his statements. I have never represented myself to be a lawyer in Texas," Celis said by phone in a brief interview this week.
Well, apparently that little law license tiff raised some more interesting questions, and now another Hsu has dropped:
CORPUS CHRISTI — Mauricio Celis is linked to the Mexican drug trade in a search warrant the state used Friday to raid his law offices and gather computer files, according to financial documents and other business records. The warrant includes a sworn statement by a Texas Attorney General's official accusing Celis of money laundering.No game of guess-that-party here; Celis accuses the Republican state AG of a politically motivated investigation because Celis is a major Democratic donor....
The state searched a U.S. Treasury database and border crossing data to determine that Celis went to Mexico frequently after withdrawing large sums of cash, according to an affidavit accompanying the warrant.
"Celis is rumored to be associated with questionable criminal element (sic) possibly related to drug trafficking," the affidavit states.
The affidavit, by Capt. Alex Pena of the Attorney General's Office, states that Pena "believes that Mauricio Celis has committed the felony offense of money laundering."
A document the state obtained from Frost Bank showed a joint account signed by Celis and Raul Armando Winder, a Mexican citizen and former police officer who has been employed as a pilot by individuals linked to narcotic trafficking, according to the affidavit. The account was for a business called Pegasus Air Services, which Celis owned from 2002-05, according to the Texas Secretary of State. Winder is listed as vice president on the bank application.
Of course, being a curious little ferret, I went and checked out who he's giving that money to. Major indeed. A lot of it went to Senate candidates and some to PACs. But for President, who is Mr. Celis backing? Why, imagine my surprise!
Interestingly, he doesn't seem at all coy about identifying himself as an "attorney" when he's handing out cash to the Democrats. I suppose that's a nicer job description than, say, "cash mule".
(Mr. Celis, of course, remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.)
MORE: Shortly after this raid, Celis' lawyers wrote a confidential letter to the judge (BIG legal ethics no-no!) asking for Celis' passport back. It had been surrendered as part of bail in the law-license investigation. But all of a sudden, he really needed it back just so he could go down to Mexico and, um, talk to a few witnesses...
AFTERTHOUGHT: Back here I joked that "Extreme Prejudice" sounded more and more like a documentary every day. Wasn't there a banker character, too, doing exactly what Celis was accused of doing?
UPDATE: Patterico says the link to the Opensecrets.org search doesn't work. It looks like they want you to do your own search once you get there. So type in Celis, Mauricio and pick "all election cycles" and there you go.
ONE MORE THING: For you intrepid blog-ferrets, Corpus Christi TV station KRIS has posted a pdf of the warrant, but you have to access it through this page--link's on the right hand side underneath the two pictures and over the ad; the one in the text doesn't work. Juicy part's on page 10:
