AURIS PROJECT

1006 Wyoming Street San Antonio, Texas 78203 Phone: 210-316-3638

E-Mail: dmcvea@aurisproject.org

July 21, 2015

Judge Antonia Arteaga

57th Civil District Court
Bexar County Courthouse
100 Dolorosa
San Antonio, Texas 78205
Dear Judge Arteaga:
I understand that you may be considering running for reelection as Judge of the 57th Civil
Judicial District Court of Bexar County Texas in 2016. I am writing you this letter to respectfully
request that you reconsider that intention.
About Me
I am a resident of Bexar County. I am a publisher, writer, historian, and human rights advocate. I
graduated in 1990 from Texas Womans University with a Bachelor of Science degree in
Journalism. After graduating from TWU, I worked as a general assignment reporter for
newspapers in Oregon and Texas. I have written hundreds of articles for numerous magazines
and newspapers as a staff writer and freelance writer. My specialty is in investigative, public
interest journalism. I am a past recipient of several national journalism awards, and the author of
two heavily researched non-fiction books: Power Plays: The Poor Peoples Guide to fighting
City Hall (2004), and Making Myth of Emily: Emily West de Zavala and the Yellow Rose of Texas
Legend (2006). In 2010, I was named a quarter-finalist in Francis Ford Coppolas Zoetrope
Virtual Studio National Screenplay Writing Contest. In 2011, I was a keynote speaker for San
Antonios International Womans Day March. I believe in the literature of exposure, and I view
my life purpose as giving voice to those whose voices have been stifled or otherwise oppressed.
In 1998, I emigrated to Guanajuato, Mexico, where I worked as publisher of La Farola, a
bilingual cultural magazine, and taught English at the University of Guanajuato. In 2003, I was
selected as a New Voices Fellow in Human Rights and International Cooperation, where I
worked for two years as a communications fellow with the Indian Law Resource Center in
Helena, Montana. My purpose at the Indian Law Resource Center was to inform national and
international media outlets about the human rights issues affecting Indian tribes and indigenous
peoples in the Americas. In 2004, I formed the Auris Project, a 501c3 non-profit whose mission
is to help poor and otherwise marginalized communities gain access to key rights and
development information. After several years of running successful international volunteer
programs in Central Mexico, and wishing to develop the organization further, I relocated to San

Antonio, with the intention of focusing Auris Project empowerment and information programs
on the citys historically disenfranchised Eastside. We supported our work in part with program
fees, an online bookstore, donations, and 100 percent of the proceeds from Making Myth of
Emily. I bought a dilapidated, 100 year old home in Denver Heights from a slumlord, adverse
possessed an abandoned crack house on Martin Luther King Drive, and began building an
information center for the marginalized residents of the neighborhood.
My Introduction to Bexar County Civil Courts
I became involved in the Bexar County civil courts in 2010, a year after I was struck and injured
by an inattentive driver. When Allstate Insurance Company began engaging in deceptive trade
practices, I decided to represent myself in a lawsuit related to that auto accident. As you know,
more than half of the people representing themselves in U.S. courts today are pro se
(representing themselves). In my opinion, this influx is a result of - and evidence of the failures
of the American bar. Walking through the Bexar County Courthouse, I was nonplussed to see
citizens crying in the corners, lawyers snickering at having beaten pro se litigants without having
to provide any evidence, and dazed and wandering citizens being sent in circles by sneering court
clerks. I watched as judges refused to inform pro se litigants of the requirements necessary for
advancing their requests and then immediately after give young lawyers lengthy tutorials on the
procedures to advance their causes. I witnessed lawyers freely citing false case law in court,
court reporters modifying court transcripts, court administrators falsifying public records, and the
district court clerk, Mary Kay McKinney, deliberately hiding court information from public view.
I realized I was witnessing firsthand the drastic and tragic decline of our court system. When the
majority of U.S. citizens can no longer find justice in U.S courts, the system must be reformed. I
resolved to document my experiences in my court case, learn all I could, and write a memoir that
I hoped would demystify the courthouse environment for the unfortunate pro se litigant.
Civil Procedure
As you are aware, a key role of the judge is to make sure that all parties and witnesses in a
judicial procedure follow proper courtroom procedure. The Texas Rules of Civil Procedure give
clear and precise guidance in this regard, and those rules are not discretionary. Rules of
procedure are vitally important to the fair and effective management of our legal system. They
were designed with one overarching goal: to ensure that everyone who comes to court gets a fair
trial. As U.S. Attorney Damon P. Martinez recently stated in former Bexar County District Judge
Angus McGintys federal corruption case:
Fairness and impartiality are the cornerstones of our judicial system, and
judges are expected to protect the publics trust in the system. Those who fail

to do so will be held accountable. We cannot and will not allow the publics
faith in our legal system be shaken by judicial corruption.1

However, Bexar County district judges, you included, routinely depart from rules of procedures
during hearings involving pro se litigants. These routine departures have had the unfortunate
result of denying many pro se litigants their constitutionally guaranteed day in court. I myself
have been victim of and witness to the hostile, abusive, and unconstitutional practices of local
judges and administrators in the Bexar County Courthouse. Because you have been a committed
actor in a system that has routinely denied thousands of our most vulnerable citizens their
constitutionally guaranteed right to access justice in our state, you should not seek reelection to
the district courts of Bexar County.
Affidavits of Inability
To wit: Bexar County judges have set up an illegal extrajudicial system that has allowed staff
attorneys, many of them neophytes to the judicial system, to contest and then rule on pro se
litigants affidavits to proceed without paying court cost, otherwise known as affidavits of
inability to pay court costs, or, in its abbreviated form: affidavits of inability. The cynicism,
arrogance, and disdain for rule of law inherent in this system cannot be overstated. For many
Bexar County residents, the staff attorneys extrajudicial rulings mean the end of their cases
because they cannot afford the court fees to continue.
Texas law requires that a complainants application to proceed without paying court costs be
heard by a judge. The law clearly states that the decision to deny or approve an applicants
indigence motion must be based on evidence presented in court. Of course, the state and
constitutional law in this regard is extremely liberal. In America, theoretically at least, we do not
deny citizens access to justice because they might be poor. However, in Bexar County district
civil courts, young attorneys, some fresh out of law school, are allowed to make the decision.
And they almost always rule against the resident. These extrajudicial denials are especially
concerning because the Bexar County District Civil Courts staff attorneys publically state that
their purpose is to help pro se litigants.2 And yet they are acting as both opponents and judges
against them.

1 Morris, Angela. Judge, Lawyer Get Prison Time in Bribery Scheme. Texas Lawyer,
July 16, 2015.
2 Pro se litigants currently cannot even join an uncontested docket without first
being approved by staff attorneys, even though that office warns this review will
involve a substantial wait period and we do NOT help you complete documents
you intend to present to the court. Pro Se Hearing Guidelines, Staff Attorneys
Office, Bexar County District Courts.
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How Bexar County Judges Use Staff Attorneys to Deny Pro Se Litigants Their Constitutional
Right to a Redress of Grievances:
1. A person representing himself files his petition in court.
2. If he cannot afford the court fees, he files an Affidavit of Inability to Pay Court Costs,
often referred to just as an affidavit of inability.
3. The staff attorney files a Motion to Rule for Costs, which basically asks the court to deny
the applicants affidavit of inability. The staff attorney files this contest in the name of the
district clerk and other court personnel, who would presumably be the recipients of the
court fees.
4. The staff attorney then sends a letter to the plaintiff, advising him that the staff attorney is
contesting his affidavit of inability and advises him of the date for the hearing on the
matter.
5. Typically 10 to 30 pro se litigants appear at these hearings. In support of their bid to
proceed without paying court costs, they are forced to explain their financial duress (and
sometimes sensitive personal information) to the same staff attorneys who contested their
affidavits in the first place.
6. The staff attorneys then direct the group away from the presiding judge. Using a selfserving calculation of poverty that they created in their offices, the staff attorneys then
deny the pro se litigants affidavits one by one. (This method violates both state and
federal law.)
7. A few days later, each pro se plaintiff receives a default order from the presiding judge
approving the staff attorneys contest to the affidavit of inability.
8. The plaintiff either must somehow come up with the money or have his case dismissed.
If they really are unable to pay costs - and most of them are - they simply have to walk
away from justice.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these extrajudicial denials is the judges default orders. As
you know, judges often issue default orders when litigants dont show up for court or fail to
complete some other court mandate. However, the pro se litigants in Bexar County did show up
with every intention and expectation that they would be able to plead their cases in court. You
and the other judges knowingly denied them that constitutional right. You then knowingly
penalized them for not appearing at the very proceeding that you and your colleagues actively
denied them access to in the first place. For this reason alone, you must not run for reelection.

I brought this unlawful practice to the attention of your staff attorneys office as early as
2010. Three years and hundreds of unfortunate pro se litigants - later, I was mortified to see
that the practice continued unabated. In 2013, I wrote a letter outlining in detail my concerns
about the constitutional deprivations intrinsic in that practice to Staff Attorney Dinah Gaines. I
also made a public information request for a list of all of the people in Bexar County whose
affidavits of inability to pay court costs were denied. I copied the letter to the county clerk, the
county commissioners and county judge, and the court administrator. Despite repeated requests,
the staff attorney and district clerk McKinney refused to provide that public information on the
grounds that the requested information constituted judicial records, and as such were not
responsive to the Texas Public Information Act (Attached you will find a copy of the Rule 12
Request for Judicial Records I mailed to Ms. McKinney today). Almost immediately after
protesting the extrajudicial hearings, I began to experience severe adverse and hostile
treatment from the district judges of Bexar County civil courts, lawyers, and police. While
nearly every judge I stood before treated me with great discourtesy, you, former district judge
Barbara Nellermoe, and Judge Michael Mery repeatedly departed from civil procedure and
statutory law to make adverse judgments against me that were not supported by law. Those
adverse judgments were made against a backdrop of official oppression and corruption both
inside and outside of the courthouse. Police began arresting me on pretexts, actors affiliated with
lawyers for Allstate began invading my privacy and hacking into my computers, and judges
helped criminal actors illegally seize tens of thousands of dollars of my personal and professional
property. Among the illegal seizures was a complete law library and a complete bookstore,
including rare and out of print books worth thousands dollars. For a long time, I thought that
your and other judges illegal actions against me in court were an apparent effort to silence
and/or punish me for protesting the unlawful default judgments against pro se plaintiffs. That
motive the notion that your actions were simply retaliatory is now the kindest light by which
your courtroom misconduct can be viewed given what is now known about corruption in Bexar
County.

Kristina Combs
On September 7, 2013, attorney Kristina Combs and Texas notary public Ofelia Lisa Hernandez
began repeatedly breaking into 1614 Martin Luther King Drive, the former crack house we were
developing into a community information center. We had lawfully been in possession of the
property since at least 2008 pursuant to Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 16.026. Combs used a
variety of fraudulent methods to gain illegal possession of the property, including false
statements to police, fraudulent filings in court, and the creation of fraudulent instruments. At all
times, the illegal nature of Combs activities was apparent and continuously documented and
shared by me. An uncorrupted, responsible public servant would have put a stop to the illegal

activity immediately. Instead, former District Judge Barbara Nellermoe, lawyers associated with
Allstate Insurance Company, police officers, you, and a variety of other city and county
employees abetted Combs at every level. Ultimately, Judge Nellermoe would depart from
procedure, jurisdiction, and law to essentially award Combs the real and personal property
located at 1614 MLK, including the law library and book store that took me more than 10 years
to build. The property now sits abandoned and crumbling anew; all of the work we had done to
rehabilitate it destroyed by the illegal acts of Combs and her co-conspirators.
I had never met Kristina Combs before surprising her, her father Roger Combs, notary Ofelia
Lisa Hernandez, and Erik Hernandez entering buildings at 1614 MLK with bolt cutters the night
of September 7, 2013. When she began burgling the property, she had filed no documents in
court, and had made no attempts to inform me of her claim to the property. She just showed up
one night with bolt cutters. Once surprised in the act, she alleged alternatively that she was
assisting heirs take back the property (falsely holding out notary Ofelia Lisa Hernandez and
Ofelias husband Erik as heirs) and then describing herself as representing Arizona resident
James Michael Kissler as the alleged buyer of the property.
A graduate of Thomas J. Cooley, an unranked law school with many detractors, Combs from the
beginning demonstrated very little actual knowledge of the law. A review of motions and other
records she belatedly filed in court reveals that Combs has little to no grasp of substantive law,
civil procedure, or even legal forms. At one point in a pretrial hearing, Judge Karen Pozza
appeared unable to determine which of the litigants standing before her was pro se and which
was a lawyer of the Texas bar because Combs motion was so sophomoric. In her pleadings to
the courts, she has rarely correctly cited Texas law. When I prevailed over Combs on the motion
before Judge Pozza, Combs simply walked downstairs where you and former assistant staff
attorney Tiffany Duong assigned her a new hearing. The new hearing was eventually dropped,
but when I returned to have Judge Pozza certify the ruling in my favor in accordance with rules
of civil procedure, she refused to sign her own order. The official court transcript captures
Combs displeasure with Pozzas order before she headed downstairs to presiding court to get a
redo from you. It was at that moment that I realized that Combs job was to tell the judges what
was expected of them. It is quite something to see a barely literate woman demanding and
getting duly elected judges to do her bidding outside of the constraints of law and procedure.

The Quitclaim Deeds

Even before Judge Nellermoe handed over all of my organizations assets to Kristina Combs (the
Bexar County Deeds office listed Combs as the owner of the property almost immediately after
Nellermoes order), I could see that the quitclaim deeds she filed in the deeds office were
fraudulent. Combs never provided a copy of the deeds to me; I was forced to research and
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retrieve them from the county deeds office on my own. Combs also did not properly serve me in
the suit. As I ran from county agency to county agency attempting to gain information about
what was happening, Combs and Hernandez continued breaking into the property. I complained
about this to every judge I stood before; I received nothing but cold stares and shrugs.
I visited notary Hernandezs place of employment, the Law Firm of Loree, Lipscomb, &
Hernandez, to request to see her notary book. She hid herself, apparently not wanting me to see
that she was the same woman breaking into my property at MLK pretending to be an heir. Even
though notary records are public information and must be surrendered upon request, Hernandez
went to court to withhold the records. Hernandez later reported to the Secretary of States office
that all of her notary books mysteriously burned in a fire.
On October 31, 2013, I scheduled a hearing about Hernandezs notary records concerning the
quitclaim deeds. You were assigned to presiding court that day. While I sat in presiding court
through three dockets, you and staff attorney Tiffany Duong secreted Kristina Combs and the
notarys lawyer Thomas Hernandez or his proxy away in a back room. With court provided
paper, Kristina Combs then was allowed to write an order sanctioning me and fining me $1500,
ostensibly for not showing up for the hearing. You signed that illegal order. Your activity that day
seemed designed to -and did, in fact - hide Hernandezs and Combs fraudulent recordings of the
quitclaim deeds. The associated activity, the act of fining a person for not appearing while the
person sat in court, is a blatant and unconscionable abuse of discretion. For this reason alone,
you must not run for re-election.
A court certified forensic document examiner would later analyze the quitclaim deeds. She found
that Ofelia Lisa Hernandez fraudulently signed her own name several times, the name of another
notary, the purported buyers name, and the purported sellers names. A review of county deed
records showed that almost immediately after Nellermoe awarded the property to Kissler, Combs
transferred the property into her own name. She would later steal every single item of value
owned by my organization before ultimately transferring the property to a broker. I later watched
in disbelief as thousands of dollars of my personal and organizational assets began showing up
on Craigslist, sold by anonymous sellers using temporary phone numbers. To hide her fraud, she
would later attack me and then, giving false information to police, cause my unlawful arrest on
facially fraudulent assault charges. Even though her attack and theft of my personal property
were recorded on video, I was the one charged with criminal assault. Nearly two years later, I
remain on criminal bond in Bexar County. Throughout my criminal case, judges and lawyers
have repeatedly pressured me to plea bargain with prosecutors despite ample evidence of the
spuriousness of the charge. As you are aware, citizens waive their constitutional rights when they
plea bargain on criminal charges. Given the evidence that now exists on the record, one can see
why local jurists and officers of the court would feel such a need to pressure that outcome.

Mexican Cartel and Associates

Combs was not only assisted in her fraud by insurance lawyers and local judges. Police played
an active role in furthering Combs and Hernandezs fraud and theft. A review of SAPD police
records shows that police assigned to the Eastside substation refused to investigate the burglaries,
arrest the burglars, or even record their names on police reports. Conversely, police officers have
arrested me three times on pretexts since I became involved in researching corruption in the
Bexar County Courthouse. At each arrest, I was the victim of a crime. Police records show that
those same police officers have also consistently refused to intervene in an organized crime
apartment complex near my home that is notorious for selling copious amounts of black tar
heroin, crack cocaine and women and under-aged girls for prostitution. For much of May and
June of this year, persons associated with that criminal enterprise endlessly circled my home and
made overt attempts against my life while San Antonio police officers refused to intervene and
took concerted steps to hide the attempts from public record. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
has deemed these threats to my safety as credible. Many of the persons involved in these
attempts have direct ties to Mexican cartels. The narco-traffickers responsible for attempts
against my life can now be connected to Kristina Combs through corrupt police officers. Kristina
Combs, obviously, is also connected to her insurance lawyer clients, and ultimately, the judges
who assisted her in illegally seizing my property. All of this has been documented and shared
with federal authorities. I truly believe that absent the presence of a federal anti-corruption task
force investigating the local courthouse3, I would be dead by now. Because the actions you took
in court violates rule and law and assisted a criminal conspiracy that leads directly to associates
of international narcotics cartels, you must not run for re-election.
Please be clear: I am writing you not simply as a Bexar County resident aggrieved by your
judicial misconduct, but also as a U.S. citizen deeply concerned about national security.
Finally, I do not believe you are aware of all of the events taking place on the streets of San
Antonio and that is why I decided to write this letter. Because of your privileged and insular
lifestyles, judges often forget that the actions you take in the courtroom have serious and
sometimes devastating effects on real people living real and challenging lives. The effects of
your orders and judgments stop at the courthouse door only for you; the rest of us may be
affected for a lifetime. Therefore, your edicts must always be fair, impartial, and above all else,
100 percent aligned with the law. When they are not, you weaken not just the judicial system but
also the very fabric of American life. You make us vulnerable to all sorts of societal threats.

3 Contreras, Guillermo, FBI to Courthouse: Your Phones Have Been Tapped. San
Antonio Express-News. February 21, 2014.
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International cartel associates are swaggering around Eastside San Antonio today precisely
because they feel they have gained significant control of our justice system.
The bench is not something that is given to you; it is not a gift. It is not something that provides
rewards to be shared with friends. It is a fragile institution of deep obligation and duty. It is a
burden. It must be at all times above reproach. The people populating this courthouse seem to
have lost sight of these fundamental truths. The lack of appreciation for the real life
consequences of misconduct displayed by local judges is deeply troubling and must change. I
implore you: in lieu of running for another term, instead return to your roots. Contemplate the
intended purpose of the Bexar County judiciary, its obligations to the residents of Bexar County
and the nation, and its irrevocable relationship to the U.S. Constitution.
Most sincerely:
Denise McVea
Executive Director

VERIFICATION
I, DENISE MCVEA, duly swear under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

STATE OF TEXAS

COUNTY OF BEXAR

)
)

____________________________________
DENISE MCVEA

I certify that Denise McVea personally appeared before me and being first duly sworn declared
that she signed the foregoing instrument in the capacity designated, if any, and further states that
she has read the above instrument and that the statements therein contained are true.

__________________________________
NOTARY PUBLIC

My commission ends on _____________________.

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