Many Rejoice at Marc Schwartz Guilty Plea

Marc Schwartz was a mover and shaker. He's the kind of political consultant that got things done. And according to multiple sources that dealt with him, he was the kind of guy that wasn't afraid to throw a few elbows when going for a rebound.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of people in this town that are pretty damn happy to see Marc Schwartz go to jail.

I've been contacted by several people, all with their own I-happy-he's-getting-what-he-deserves story. But I thought I would relay one story in particular because it exposes some of the behind the scenes stuff that happens in this town that would drive people crazy if they knew about it.

And I should start by saying, this is a story that has been relayed on talk radio previously. Roy Ortega recounted this story when he was on the air with Paul Strelzin once.

The short of it is that Marc Schwartz allegedly got Roy Ortega, a veteran newsman in El Paso, fired from his job as the News Director at KTSM back in the day.

In 1999 Ortega had assigned a sharp investigative reporter named Paul Johnson to a story investigating allegations of corruption against Schwartz who was then the public relations guy for the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. Schwartz allegedly took great exception to the presence of the news crew and Ortega says Schwartz had the Tribal Police confiscate the station's camera and destroy the video.

Ortega further alleges that Schwartz went even further and threatened the station that the Tribe would cancel their $50,000 contract with the station if they didn't get rid of Ortega.

Ortega stuck to his principles as a journalist and refused to give up on the story. The rest, as they say, is history. Ortega was let go from KTSM.

Ortega says it was later revealed that Schwartz was the one who got the tribe mixed up with Jack Abramoff who made off with $4.5 million of the Pueblo's money.