As he exited the federal courthouse elevator on the way in which to his sentencing listening to, Jose Huizar was relaxed sufficient to joke together with his legal professionals.
The ex-Los Angeles metropolis councilmember would quickly learn how a lot jail time he would serve after pleading responsible final yr to racketeering and tax evasion.
Strolling down the corridor in black glasses and a blue swimsuit and toting a brown satchel, he noticed me. I’ve written columns trashing him for not solely disgracing his place however for embarrassing Latinos. He might have scowled, yelled or just ignored me.
As a substitute, the Eastside politico supplied me a saludo — a greeting, steeped in our rural Mexico roots, reserved for individuals who command respect.
“How’s it going, brother?” he mentioned with a smile as we shook fingers and headed to the courtroom collectively. I requested how he was feeling. He seemed as puckish as Alfred E. Neuman as he shrugged his shoulders and put out his fingers.
His public defenders, youthful-looking sufficient to be recent out of regulation college, tried to whisk him away, however he needed to catch up.
“I used to be in your rancho lately,” he mentioned — El Cargadero, the village within the mountains of Jerez, Zacatecas, the place my mother was born, subsequent to Huizar’s birthplace of Los Morales.
In late October, Huizar traveled again to the rancho after U.S. District Courtroom Decide John F. Walter allowed him to “attend non secular ceremonies [in Zacatecas] which are essential to his Catholic religion.”
In Spanish, I requested if he had attended the Oct. 24 feast day of St. Raphael Archangel, the patron saint of El Cargadero, marked with processions and events that draw 1000’s from round Jerez and the U.S. diaspora. Huizar grinned once more and went into the courtroom with out saying the rest.
You’d assume we had been cousins catching up at a household occasion. In a manner, we had been.
His mother and father knew my mother and father. My older cousins know his brothers. He and his household spent summers selecting strawberries in the identical Orange County fields as my mami and aunts. We adopted his ascendancy with satisfaction — Boyle Heights to Berkeley, Princeton to UCLA Legislation, the L.A. Unified college board to Metropolis Corridor. At household events the place we caught up on who had finished good and who had finished dangerous, my cousins instructed their kids that they too may very well be like Huizar.
He wasn’t simply the American dream. He was our American dream. He represented a zenith for individuals from Zacatecas, who in Southern California quantity almost half one million. Tens of 1000’s of these are jerezanos, who dwell largely in Anaheim, the San Fernando Valley and the Eastside.
When Huizar was arrested in 2020, I not solely shook my head in disgust, I sighed in profound disappointment. Prosecutors alleged that Huizar monetized his authorities place for years, securing greater than $1.5 million in money bribes, playing chips, luxurious lodge stays, political contributions, prostitute providers, costly meals and different monetary advantages from builders with tasks in his downtown district.
Our elders, in the meantime, cried conspiracy.
I virtually introduced my dad to the sentencing so he might spot anybody from the rancho. Greater than 50 individuals had written letters of assist for Huizar — his mom, his kids, childhood mates and folk from Jerez. However few, if any, had been in attendance. Huizar would reply for his crimes alone.
After prosecutors argued for 13 years in jail, and Huizar’s attorneys argued for 9, Walter spoke. Huizar was beloved by his household and even his constituents, the choose mentioned, and his rags-to-riches story was worthy of reward.
However Walter’s sympathy quickly turned to anger. He blasted Huizar in a didactic monotone for “promoting out his constituents,” an “unusually pervasive and rampant sample of misconduct” that was in “a league of his personal,” for displaying “little regret” and for making individuals mistrust public officers.
Huizar, 55, arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips as Walter let him have it. He spoke solely briefly to “reiterate” the apology letter he had submitted to the court docket the day earlier than.
I nodded alongside as Walter continued. When Walter mentioned, “It’s obscure why he determined to throw all of it away,” any empathy I had for Huizar vanished, regardless of our shared background.
Our mother and father purchased houses, turned U.S. residents and raised kids — my technology — who turned academics, professors, white-collar professionals or blue-collar entrepreneurs. A few of us are well-known — jerezanos of observe embrace cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist; Chicana novelist Helena Maria Viramontes; Maywood councilmember Heber Marquez; and actor Jessica Alba, who’s my third cousin as soon as eliminated and the descendant of civil rights pioneers in Pomona.
So many jerezanos turned success tales with out ripping off the general public. Why couldn’t Huizar?
Walter gave him the 13 years prosecutors had requested, additionally ordering him to pay almost $444,000 in restitution to the town of Los Angeles and almost $39,000 to the Inner Income Service. He should give up to federal authorities on April 30.
Afterward, reporters gathered exterior the courtroom. He ignored all of them … besides me. He gave me a saludo as soon as once more, this time with a fist bump and a smile no much less radiant than the one two hours earlier.
I requested once more how he felt.
“You already know I can’t discuss, brother,” Huizar replied. “However when it’s the suitable time …” He trailed off as individuals swarmed him on the way in which to the elevator.
“Did the Santo Niño de Atocha take heed to your prayers?” I replied — a reference to the patron saint of Zacatecas, a picture of which Huizar had posted on Instagram hours earlier than federal brokers arrested him at his Boyle Heights house. Afterward, zacatecanos from right here to the motherland ridiculed him for hiding behind Mexican child Jesus.
His smile this time was incredulous — as if he couldn’t consider I’d go there.
He entered an elevator together with his authorized workforce. Courtroom safety guards shoved my colleague Dakota Smith again into the corridor. Reporters and protesters shot questions and insults at him.
Huizar, nevertheless, was listening solely to me.
“¿Qué le dices a los de Jerez? ¿Cuál es tu mensaje a tus paisanos?” I yelled.
What do you say to these from Jerez? What’s your message to your countrymen?
This time, Huizar laughed. His smile bought so broad that I assumed it was going to prop open the doorways that closed as he rode right down to the remainder of his life.
