Who pays ‘poor’ boletera’s attorney fees? No one knows

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After authorities get the phone records and after they get sworn statements from the half dozen or so politicians implicated in the absentee ballot fraud committed by Hialeah boletera Deisy Cabrera, maybe someone should ask her attorney Eric Castillo who he really works for.

Castillo would not tell Ladra Tuesday who was paying him to represent Cabrera against charges of ballot fraud and forging a signature on an absentee ballot in a case being prosecuted by the Broward State Attorney’s Office.

Well, first he said “my client,” when asked point blank who was paying him. But everyone knows she can’t afford an expensive legal mouthpiece. After all, Cabrera has been painted as a “poor soul” who is forced to work campaigns for a little extra cash and even to put food in her stomach. Yeah, that’s right. People would have use believe she allegedly worked at campaigns for the free Publix deli sandwiches and pastelitos, despite the more than $10,000 she documented herself that she collected from candidates since 2008.

Totally sounds like a case for the public defender’s office, right? Not someone who would have $700 cash available to pay the 10 percent of a $7,000 surety bond to get out of jail. Not someone who could afford an attorney who is founding partner at his own law firm.

When confronted with that discrepancy, Castillo changed his story.

“Whether she is paying me or we do it pro bono is none of your business,”  he said, refusing to even tell me whether his average rate was near $100 an hour or closer to $350 an hour. “No comment”

But, ahem, I might say it is our business. Just like everyone wanted to know who hired private investigator Joe Carrillo to follow Cabrera around (and we learned it was our hero Hialeah firefighter who has been waging war against AB fraud for years), we want to know who hired Castillo to represent the boletera — or, perhaps, their own interests.

Even Castillo had to admit that my question was legitimate.

“There are a lot of legitimate questions but all I am going to say to you is no comment,” said Castillo, who used to work at Alvarez, Carbonell, Feltman, Jimenez & Gomez, a Coral Gables law firm. I called and emailed partner Jorge Carbonell to see if he was related to Ana Carbonell, the political consultant who ran campaigns for several of the candidates connected to Cabrera, including former Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and former State Sen. Rudy Garcia. Neither Jorge nor Ana Carbonell have responded to my inquiries.

Ladra finds it strange that the Miami-Dade State Attorney can call Carrillo and grill him, er, I mean question him under oath about his client or whoever hired him to follow the boletera but that they can’t do the same with Castillo. That pesky attorney client privelege thing may be standing in the way of justice.

And I suspect Castillo’s first answer was true — that “my client” is paying him. But I also suspect Cabrera is getting someone else to foot the bill.

Still, the mystery should toss some more doubt in the court of public opinion on her and the co-conspirators she names in her notebooks, candidates and political operatives that pay her to collect absentee ballots from infirm, blind and deaf voters who don’t even know that they are voting, much less who they are casting ballots for.

And who may now be paying for her defense.

Those include Hialeah Councilwoman Vivian “I’ll Notarize That” Casals-Muñoz, who went to Cabrera’s apartment the night after she was detained and questioned by police, purportedly to take her a pan con bistec sandwich. Or, maybe, State Sen. Rene Garcia who doesn’t “remember” if he went along that night last July. He doesn’t remember? Really?

If anyone is taking bets, my money is that one of them cut the check to Castillo. And that maybe that pan con bistec came with a side of cash.