Defense In Barraza Case Cross-Examines Key Witness

By ABC-7 Reporter Abe Lubetkin

El Paso, Texas – Lawyers for suspended state judge Manuel Barraza cross-examined a key FBI witness Friday.

Barraza is accused of plotting to accept sex and money in exchange for giving a defendant preferential treatment.

In the half-day trial, defense attorneys suggested that Barraza did not plot to get sex and money.

Instead the defense seemed to suggest the whole scheme was propagated by family and friends of Diana Rivas-Valencia, the woman who wanted Barraza’s help, and by the FBI.

Defense attorney Mervyn Mosbacker focused on a recorded conversation between the woman’s sister and Barraza in which, Mosbacker suggested, Barraza wanted to talk about the woman’s case, but the sister kept steering the subject of conversation to sex.

The woman’s sister, Sarai Rivas-Valencia, was there with a female undercover FBI agent, whose job was to entice Barraza.

In court, Mosbacker held up a pair of lingerie, which he suggested the FBI agent handed Barraza as a seductive gift.

The witness said she didn’t recognize the underwear.

In suggesting the witness tried to bait Barraza, the Mosbacker asked:

“You know that he’s a flirt, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Sarai Rivas-Valencia replied.

“And you know even though there’d been flirtation (in the past) he’d never followed through?” Mosbacker asked.

“By this point (in the conversation) the topic had been that he did want the women,” Sarai replied.

At another point in the conversation, the FBI agent told Barraza she was free Saturday.

“It’s going to be lunch or not?” Barraza asked the agent, on tape.

Mosbacker suggested Barraza could have been referring to an innocent lunch.

But Sarai disagreed.

“It was not in reference to eating,” she said.

“‘Lunch’ is where you have one person, and you in between them,” she explained, using her hands to illustrate the sexual positioning.

On the recording, in response to Barraza’s question, the undercover FBI agent replied, “It’s going to be a buffet.”

Barraza’s trial continues Monday morning.

If convicted, he could spend 20 years in prison.