March 22:
Miss S.A. jury reviews bikini shots and taco comments
Jurors passed around a poster-sized bikini shot of ousted Miss San Antonio Domonique Ramirez as attorneys wrangled Monday over who first suggested the 17-year-old should “get off the tacos.”FWIW, I do think that Ramirez doesn't fit the profile of the typical bikini-clad beauty queen (see picture below). Not that she's a porker - most women would love to have her figure - but she's a little less cut and a little more 'rounded' than most pageant contestants.
Both sides remember the comment was made during a photo shoot in December, one month before the beauty queen's reign was revoked. But contrary to what Ramirez has told national media outlets while pursuing a lawsuit to try to get back her crown, she was the one who mentioned tacos, a pageant official and the photographer told jurors.
Pageant board President Linda Woods has said insubordination, and not her weight, was why Ramirez was dropped as Miss San Antonio.
Ramirez is asking a jury to restore her title and the benefits that go with it, such as participation in Fiesta and the Miss Texas pageant.
As the defense began presenting its case, Woods told jurors the taco conversation started after she commented that the dress Ramirez brought to the photo shoot was “kind of snug.”
“She said she eats a lot of junk food — Mexican food and tacos,” Woods said, explaining that Ramirez then said she'd lay off such food. “I said, ‘I agree.'”
Photographer Jeffrey Truitt gave a similar account, adding that the bikini photo “wasn't flattering to her.” Ramirez's attorneys introduced Truitt's photos after his testimony.
On the stand for hours earlier Monday, Ramirez had a recollection: It was Woods who brought up tacos and Woods who ignited a media firestorm when she mentioned them to a local radio station after the lawsuit was filed, Ramirez said.
“At first I didn't want to go to the media because I was kind of ashamed,” Ramirez said. But she changed her mind, she said, after “they went to the media and they started slandering me.”
Ramirez also briefly suggested that pageant director Caroline Haggard Flores, who has so far not made a court appearance, insulted her family's financial situation.
“She told me to stop shopping at Walmart for my dresses,” Ramirez said.
March 23:
Miss S.A. 'degraded the crown'
The strange legal battle over who gets to be Miss San Antonio 2011 has sullied the beauty pageant's reputation, both sides agreed Tuesday as courtroom hostilities continued in the case.Insults flying back and forth. Pageant officials revealed to be felons and jailbirds. Bad manners (late writing thank you notes). I wish I could have sat in the courtroom for this one.
But was the damage done by an irresponsible teen queen attracting a media spotlight with outlandish accusations? Or because the woman who runs the organization spent time in a federal prison and still owes the government $13.5 million?
The answers in court Tuesday sometimes depended on who was talking the loudest.
Ousted Miss San Antonio Domonique Ramirez, 17, filed suit last month to try to recover her sash and crown, which were yanked at the request of pageant executive director Caroline Haggard Flores. A jury has been listening to the arguments since last Wednesday.
“Isn't it true you didn't want Domonique because she didn't have the money you expected her to have?” attorney Luis Vera Jr. asked Flores during hours of aggressive cross-examination. “Isn't it true your whole life has been about money — that's how you ended up in prison?”
Flores vehemently denied both accusations, saying she paid her debt to society by serving a year and three months of her federal prison sentence in the late 1990s under plea agreements for Medicaid fraud and tax evasion.
“This is not about me,” Flores responded several times throughout the morning and afternoon. “This is about a contract and Domonique's infractions, Mr. Vera. I don't know why we're wasting time on all of this.”
Flores said Ramirez routinely put the organization's reputation at risk by arriving late to events. She declined voice lessons from a pageant board member and failed to write a “thank you” note to the same person for a musical plaque that read, “Dream big,” Flores said.
Ramirez's media interviews, Flores said, have “degraded the crown.”
Ramirez's attorney, who also serves as national counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, returned the jabs by accusing Flores of being an alcoholic and mentally unstable — which she denied.
Flores “made up” many of the accusations that led to Ramirez's ouster, Vera also suggested on several occasions.
“That truly insults me,” Flores responded indignantly to one such assertion.
“I'm glad that it does,” Vera shot back.
What will be the outcome?
March 25:
Texas beauty queen wins back her crown
The 17-year-old beauty queen who claimed pageant organizers harassed her about her weight before stripping her of the Miss San Antonio title has won her courtroom fight to get it back.Sour grapes...
Domonique Ramirez claimed she was unfairly booted in January after pageant officials accused her of gaining weight and told her to "get off the tacos." Pageant officials insisted weight wasn't the issue and that the teenager violated her contract with conduct unbefitting a beauty queen.
A Bexar County jury deliberated 11½ hours before siding with Ramirez on Thursday. Judge Barbara Nellermoe then restored Ramirez's crown, according to court Clerk Grace Montalvo.
However, a top pageant official says she will do nothing to help Ramirez advance to the Miss Texas and Miss America crowns.
"I'm sorry, there's no way I would represent her as talent. She's trouble," pageant director Linda Woods said.San Antonio is a very Catholic place, what with all the Hispanics (yes, that's a generalization, but the city does have a high percentage of Hispanics and a high percentage of Catholics. Coincidence? I think not...)
Woods said giving Ramirez the crown back was "an injustice for the city of San Antonio."
"It allows young kids to breach contracts and violate authority without any consequences. ... It sends the wrong message," she said.
Ramirez denied gaining weight or being late.
Immediately after the trial, Ramirez went to Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church to place the crown on its altar as a gift to the patroness.
IMO Ramirez was courting favor among the Hispanic and Catholic population.
"She's the queen of all queens, the keeper of all crowns. I wanted to give my crown to her," Ramirez said, adding that she could buy a replacement crown for the upcoming Fiesta and Miss Texas appearances that go with the title. "I just wanted to send a message I'm very grateful and she has answered my prayers."
Asked if she had any advice to other young women, Ramirez cautioned them to always carefully read any contract they sign and, she added jokingly: "Don't go eating tacos in the morning."
March 26:
Miss S.A. controversy lives on (March 26)
What bit of sparkly rhinestone headgear can send San Antonio news organizations scrambling to get reporters and cameras to a West Side church on a moment's notice?The West Side neighborhood where the church is located is not one of the safest areas of town.
It's the restored Miss San Antonio's much coveted crown, of course, the one she gave to Our Lady of Guadalupe as an offering of thanks after getting her title back from the pageant organization that stripped her of it last month.
Domonique Ramirez left the crown at the Catholic church of the same name Thursday, minutes after a jury decided in her favor in her suit against the organization.
On Friday, her lawyer, Luis Vera Jr., told news organizations that pageant officials showed up at the church trying to get it back.
That drew a furious reaction from the pageant's lawyer, even as the church was swarmed by the media.
Ben Wallis Jr., attorney for Miss Bexar County Organization Inc., which runs the Miss San Antonio pageant, said the allegation was “totally false.”
Wallis said he and pageant officials might consider filing a defamation suit against Vera.
“He's staging things to try to gain sympathy,” Wallis said. “It's a total stunt. I think it's totally inappropriate for an attorney.”
Vera said that even before the media frenzy, a pageant official had called Father Ronald D. Gonzales at the church to ask where the crown was being kept. The priest then took the headpiece from the virgin's altar, stowed it away, and alerted him the official had called, Vera said.
Gonzales was more lighthearted about the episode, saying pageant officials only called to make sure the crown was secure.
“Around this neighborhood, things sprout patitas (little feet) and walk away,” he joked. “But the crown is safe.”
Stay tuned. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this one.
In other news, local Taco Bells have raised the price of their crunchy beef burritos. The reaction?
Man upset by burrito price increase gets in shootout with police
The price of the Beefy Crunch Burrito had gone up from 99 cents to $1.49 and the man at the Rigsby Road Taco Bell drive-thru had just ordered seven.Never a dull moment around here...
The fast food customer was so disgruntled by the price hike he shot an air gun at the manager, displayed an assault rifle and pistol while in the restaurant's parking lot, fled as police were called, and pointed one of his weapons at three officers who pulled him over. Fleeing when they opened fire, he barricaded himself in his hotel room — all over $3.50 plus additional tax.
Ricardo Jones, 37, was charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault against a public servant.
Jones was taken into custody about 6:45 p.m. Sunday after officials used tear gas to get him out of the motel room where he was staying. Police recovered the rifle and two handguns, Benavides said.
It all began about four hours earlier when the man put in his order at the Taco Bell/KFC two-for-one restaurant in the 5300 block of Rigsby Road on the city's East Side.
Restaurant manager Brian Tillerson, 41, said his employees told him a customer was upset about the price of the Beefy Crunch Burrito.
“They did use to be 99 cents, but that was just a promotion,” Tillerson said. “He pointed a gun at me, and he fired it. I leaned to the side and there was a pop but nothing happened.”
Looking out the windows, he said he saw the man put an assault rifle and a handgun on the roof of his Mitsubishi Endeavor. Customers dove under their tables, the employees scrambled to the back and Tillerson ran to the front to lock the doors as he called police.
The man then jumped into his vehicle and took off, Tillerson said.
Fewer than two miles away, at W.W. White Road and Hershey Drive, officers spotted the suspect and two patrol units pulled over the car, Benavides said. As the officers got out of their cars, the man got out of his car carrying the assault rifle in his hands and pointing it at the officers.
From there, the man sped off to the Rodeway Inn in the 200 block of North W.W. White Road just a few blocks away from Interstate 10.
It was about 3 p.m., and the man refused to come out.
Sharpshooters climbed up on the roof of the Sky Line Food Mart next to the motel. Police blocked off W.W. White in both directions. They evacuated some nearby businesses and some of the rooms in the motel.
Through a megaphone the negotiator could be heard telling the man to pick up the phone.
“No one needs to get hurt,” the negotiator said.
Around 6:30 p.m., and without a reply from the man inside, SWAT used tear gas to clear the room, Benavides said. The man came out without incident.
Tillerson, calm and back at work after giving a statement to police, said after hearing that the customer shot at officers he was even more relieved he didn't get into his restaurant.
“The weird thing is,” Tillerson said, “He was here a week ago around the same time last Sunday. He yelled at me then too.”
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