Villalpando: Campaign opponents planted by Cantrell
NWI Times
Mar 12, 2006
nwitimes.com/news/local/villalpando-campaign-opponents-planted-by-cantrell/article_91917fdd-a7bd-58d4-a7d8-5b1574f186ee.html
CROWN POINT | Lake Superior Judge Jesse Villalpando is campaigning against the Cantrells, but that family isn't on the May 2 Democratic primary ballot.
Hammond lawyer Eduardo Fontanez and Merrillville lawyer Stanley Jablonski demand Villalpando confront them as his true opponents.
Villalpando refuses, claiming the two men are hand puppets of Robert Cantrell, an East Chicago political operative. He claims Robert Cantrell put the two men in the race against him this spring to punish him for refusing to bow to the "Cantrell syndicate," as Villalpando calls it.
Villalpando said Fontanez and Jablonski are challenging his election in part because he refuses to refer more criminal defendants with substance abuse problems to Addiction and Family Care, a Hammond-based counseling service for which Robert Cantrell is paid as a consultant.
Villalpando alleges in a memo he recently made public that he lunched with Robert Cantrell at East Chicago restaurant, Casa Blanca, to discuss the matter, but their discussion went sour.
At that point, according to Villalpando, "Cantrell stated, 'See (Eddie Fontanez) at the next table. He's going to do exactly what I tell him. If I put him in as a candidate against you, he can't beat you, but every vote he gets is one you would have gotten.'
"I didn't pay Cantrell's ransom demands and that is why Eddie Fontanez is a candidate against me," Villalpando said.
Robert Cantrell said last week, "Casa Blanca meeting? That is the biggest lie."
Fontanez also denies it.
Villalpando claims Jablonski is running because he receives an annual salary of $21,600 as chief public defender for Robert Cantrell's daughter, Superior Court Judge Julie Cantrell.
Jablonski said the Cantrells don't own him.
"That is absolutely not true," Jablonski said. "Anybody who knows my personality knows I'm my own man. I would not refuse help from anyone because I'm fighting an incumbent, but nobody put me in the race."
Fontanez said Villalpando dismisses him and flings mud because "he's becoming nervous about losing his job. He thinks this court is some kind of birthright.
"He was a state representative and wrote this law (creating his court), and now he is making all these unfounded accusations to distract voters," Fontanez said.
Villalpando said he believes has done a good job as a judge. He admits court operations began slow because of time needed time to get the court up and running. He noted the courtroom was not built until several months after he took office.
Villalpando also said Cantrell candidates in the past have used court backlogs to attack opponents. Now, he said, they are attacking him for not having a backlog.
But Fontanez doesn't buy that explanation.
"The other County Division judges have done about 120,000 or 130,000 cases in the last five years," Fontanez said. "He's done only 40,000 cases. This is a retirement job for him. He's not demanding cases be sent over to his court because he wants to relax."
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