Well, first there was Hsu. Now there is Celis.
It wasn’t much of a story at first. Back in October a rival accused Corpus Christi “attorney” Mauricio Celis of practicing law without a license, which is a felony in Texas. And you know,he seemed to be hemming and hawing about his bona fide lawyerness quite a bit.
Born in Mexico, raised in Rockport, educated in Monterrey, Mexico, and for a while apparently in the air-conditioning business, Celis seemed a South Texas version of the classic American success story.But the story line took a bad turn on Sept. 28, when Thomas Henry, a Corpus Christi lawyer, appeared on a local television station and denounced Celis, 35, as a fraud.
“Mauricio Celis with the law firm of CGT Law Group International does not have a law license in the state of Texas nor does he have a license to practice law anywhere in the world,” announced Henry in the paid TV spot.
… “He was wrong in his statements. I have never represented myself to be a lawyer in Texas,” Celis said by phone in a brief interview this week.
That and related folderol were good for a few quick jibes in the blogosphere, but never really reached Hsu-like proportions.Well, apparently that little law license tiff raised some more interesting questions, and now another Hsu has dropped:
CORPUS CHRISTI — Mauricio Celis is linked to the Mexican drug trade in a search warrant the state used Friday to raid his law offices and gather computer files, according to financial documents and other business records. The warrant includes a sworn statement by a Texas Attorney General’s official accusing Celis of money laundering.
Reckon there are others?
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