Ammerman tough on criminals

When Bernard Ammerman was an asst. district attorney in Cameron County he won the nickname "The Hammer".

We are begining to understand the reason.

Last week Ammerman and asst. county attorney Scott Greenbaum accepted guilty pleas from two defendants in two seperate cases. Both drew long prison terms.

Adrian Conde, 32, of Raymondville was sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed, 10 years in prison for the Feb. 26 attempted burglary of a home.

After he pled guilty in 197th State District Court he was sentenced by Judge Migdalia Lopez.

The law allows any sentence from probation to confinement from 2 years to 10 years and the defendant got the latter.

Ammerman thanked office Daniel Duran of the Raymondville Police Dept. for his participation in this case.

Juan Carlos Garcia, of Sebastian, pled guilty in the same court to aggravated assault and evading arrest.

Judge Lopez sentenced Garcia to 13 years in prison on the first count and 2 years on the second. The defendant was also sentenced to 13 years in prison for another charge of aggravated assault on Oct. 21, 2000, making a total of 28 years in prison.

Ammerman said, "The Willacy County and District Attorney's office will aggressively prosecute crimes of violence and we thank Investigator Guillermo Salinas, Jr., of the Willacy County Sheriff's Dept. and Game Warden Robbie Robinson of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept., for their participation in this case.