By RON MEXICO
Staff Writer
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - As night fell, a woman stole silently into a popular seafood eatery here, the noise of flapping seagull wings arriving with every gust of island breeze. From light coming off a rusting stanchion pole in a corner of the now-vacant parking lot, she could see the seagulls lowering themselves onto a slice of Texas Toast someone had flung out some vehicle's window, the hungry seagulls doing it in neat helicopter-like landings. It was a quiet Monday night. Everyone was home in bed as midnight neared. Word moving across town seemed to center on another woman most in town knew simply as Tara, to the newspapers and feds as Dr. Tara Rios-Ybarra.
They knew her well, since her days here and her days in Austin, where she served them as a state representative in the Texas Legislature. They'd heard the gossip, the many rumors that openly said Tara was messing with a married man, messing with him while being married herself. On days when island business sank with the sun, it was all anybody talked about. Then the story burst forth in longform on the pages of The Valley Morning Star. It was a rip-snorter of a story. There was the tale of the day in black & white, in quotes, in quotes from Tara herself. Not since Elizabeth Taylor had brushed aside the actor Eddie Fisher for one Richard Burton in Hollywood had such a tale come full-circle. Only, South Padre is a small community. Like the seagulls coming in for a snack, it, too, struggles to exist on crumbs from obnoxious tourists who want things on the cheap just because the island is so close to Mexico. The salacious tales of sex and betrayal swelled, fueled by exaggeration born from boredom and spite.
And so, there went Tara to Austin, where she served and reportedly served well. Until she lost the party's primary earlier this year, when her constituents decided a representative with her romantic baggage was not in their script. Tara Rios-Ybarra remains in the legislature until the next election and that'll be that. Still, as the night grew to become the domain of a swarm of hungrier mosquitoes, there was yet more to the story.
Rios-Ybarra was next indicted in connection with a Medicaid fraud case that caught a handful of other dentists in its web, caught them playing games with the federal welfare program and with the region's poor, the latter an unforgiveable sin in this part of the world.
The young dentist who had flirted-away her marriage and her career in politics now stood literally naked before a no-nonsense federal judge, her latest gasp being a request to the same judge that he allow her to keep working the profitable Medicaid program. It's about the patients, her lawyer argued. They need her, he said. They were doing without dental care while she fought for her professional life. She was seemingly only a rung, perhaps two, on the ladder from the bottom, from total ruination.
Her answer, from the judge, would come later today. The constituency she had enjoyed had already rendered its verdict in the voting booth...
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[Editor's Note: Rios-Ybarra, a Democrat, was charged with three counts of making payments to a non-licensed physician. The felony charges allege involvement in a kickback scheme led by McAllen oral surgeon Gary Morgan Schwarz. He's accused of paying four Valley dentists - one of them Tara - to refer him Medicaid patients...]
8 comments:
Good Music, to bad it sounds like the story of: Tara Rios, Mariposa Traiceionera, y brinca cercas, as they say in the hood.
Maria Louisa:...The world's been hard on Tara lately, for good reason, but the predicatble piling-on was to be expected. We wish her well, although she's in a tough bind... - Editor
I served on a jury once where a young woman was accused of murder. At the time of the murder she was 16. By the time the trial rolled around, she was 18. Several of the male members didn't want to convict her, even though they thought she was guilty, because they said, "she was too young and too pretty to go to jail". Now that's a whole 'nother layer of prejudice.
(Now that's a whole 'nother layer of prejudice.)
Agree completely. Rios is accused of making up medicaid cases for profit. Before she even goes to trial she goes and asks a judge to allow her to return to her criminal activities. If the judge doesn't slam her back in jail until the trial, you will have literal proof about the prejudice thing.
ralph
Tara isn't pretty, she has committed adultry, and now she is contributing to fraud.
She belongs in prison. And if she had any decency she would resign from the state legislature.
I am going to say it again, once a criminal always a criminal.
I don't know about this judges.
Maria Luisa:...The history of politicians staying on the job while under indictment is a thick one. Citizens are correct in asking that the position be honored, but politicians normally turn a deaf ear to that. Tara seems to be of such a mind... - Editor
Tara Rios is a Disgrace and shame to the entire Mexican - American Subculture... She's been assimilated by the Dominant and ruling culture .
Now She's just another sad and pittiful
" Sold - out Tex - Mex Border Pocha ".
It use to be you could be easily profile thiefs, vinny caps, dressed in black, walking on alleys not showing their face, face masks, gloves and a laundry bag, usually wearing black tennis.
Now they are Men and Women dressed in suits, women having manicures and pedicures, botox,etc, And men wearing suits, or pressed clothing with shoes from Dillards or Macys. And to add to the topping, they are lawyers, Doctors, Dentist, Engineers, Architecs, CEO, Insurance Brokers.
Man, how time has changed.
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