San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Candidate has history of tax debt, breach-of-contract suits
State Rep. Roland Gutierrez has been slapped with multiple federal and state tax liens, two breach-ofcontract lawsuits and four tax forfeitures by the state of Texas.
The South Side Democrat is a leading candidate for the state Senate seat vacated this week by Carlos Uresti, who awaits sentencing on 11 felony counts of fraud and money laundering.
On March 28 of this year, the Internal Revenue Service filed notice of a federal tax lien against Gutierrez and his wife, Sarah, totaling $60,284, for unpaid taxes dating back to 2015.
In addition, the state of Texas has outstanding tax liens against two Gutierrez businesses for amounts totaling more than $10,000.
An Oct. 27, 2017, filing against Gutierrez Law Firm Immigration, Inc. included delinquent taxes and charges totaling $7,765. A Jan. 22,
2018, filing against RSCA Foods LLC — the entity behind Edera OsteriaEnoteca, the now-defunct Alta Vista neighborhood restaurant Gutierrez and his wife opened in 2015 — cited a state tax debt of $2,448.
The couple announced the restaurant’s closing in early March, only a week before Gutierrez officially declared his intention to run for Texas Senate District 19.
Gutierrez has only recently resolved several other tax debts.
Five months ago, the IRS released a $26,382 lien against his law firm for unpaid payroll taxes covering the first half of 2017. In March, they released a separate lien against the firm, totaling $34,807, for taxes owed in the third quarter of last year.
The law firm also resolved a state lien last year for $7,874 in unpaid franchise taxes.
In March, Gutierrez lost a breach-of-contract lawsuit in Travis County Court to DryDoc Building Corporation. DryDoc, the landlord for the now-closed Austin office for Gutierrez’s law firm, sued for unpaid rent and was awarded $20,400, plus post-judgment interest, court costs and $3,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Gutierrez also has faced a breach-of-contract suit from Guillermo Fontes, a Mexican national who hired Gutierrez’s law firm in August 2013 to obtain a visa for residence in the United States.
According to Fontes’ lawsuit, a $12,000 international bank transfer was made to Gutierrez on Aug. 9, 2013. Two years later, Fontes notified Gutierrez’s law firm that he wanted to sever the arrangement and he asked for a refund.
“On or around Oct. 8, 2015, Mr. Fontes was notified that a refund would be made in the next two weeks and since that time, no refund has been made,” Fontes alleged in his court filing.
Gutierrez said he is in the process of finalizing a settlement agreement with Fontes and is appealing his outstanding federal tax lien.
He also said that four tax forfeitures involving businesses for which he was listed either as the registered agent or manager — Defensa Inmigrante, Gutierrez Demolition Construction, IMMSA and Solar Texas Energy — were the result of paperwork oversights.
“My accountant or my business manager didn’t shut those down,” Gutierrez said. “We haven’t used those companies in many years.”
Gutierrez pinned some of his tax problems on challenges his law firm has faced since Donald Trump, a vehement immigration hawk, became president in January
2017.
“Look, I ran a business with 25 employees. We’re down to about 10 now,” he said. “Business is not what it once was.
“I’ve had as many as five lawyers that I’ve been in charge of at a time and, unfortunately, things haven’t gotten done, either through them or administrators, in the best way possible.”
Gutierrez added, “We’re just trying to make it and it ain’t easy. We’ve never filed for bankruptcy and everyone’s been paid. Sometimes the tax man is the last one to get paid.”
Gutierrez got the jump on other potential Senate District 19 contenders by traveling the district and building name recognition months before Uresti was convicted.
Last Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott called a special election for July 31, with early voting starting on July 16.
Gutierrez’s toughest rival looks to be his former Texas House colleague Pete Gallego, a West Texas Democrat who served one term in U.S. House District 23, before being unseated in 2014 by Republican Will Hurd.
As of Friday afternoon, six candidates had filed for the Senate seat: three Democrats (Gutierrez, Gallego and Charlie Urbina Jones) and three Republicans (Pete Flores, Jay Alaniz and Carlos Antonio Raymond).
They’ll all be running a short sprint to election day and Gutierrez will have to spend at least some of that time explaining a messy financial history.