Legal sagas continue for Walker, Garza, Ramos

The judicial system’s lengthy and arduous course of action continues for Belinda Walker, John Andrew Garza and Alice Ramos, all of whom received trial and sentencing reset dates this week.

During Tuesday’s proceedings before Judge William Old’s 25th Judicial District Court, Walker’s sentencing was reset for May 9.

Walker, 50, who was terminated by the city of Gonzales in July 2011, is charged with 13 counts of theft by a public servant, allegedly misappropriating as much as $250,000 in municipal funds during a span of more than two years.

According to the grand jury indictment, Walker is alleged to have “unlawfully appropriated” on 13 separate occasions “United States currency, of the value of less than $20,000, from the city of Gonzales … without the effective consent of the owner … by virtue of her status as such a public servant.”

The charges against Walker, who served as the city parks secretary, came eight months and one day after she was terminated from her position with the city Parks & Recreation Department.

During the same proceedings, the non-jury trial for John Andrew Garza, 30, was reset for May 28.

He has been charged with no less than 10 crimes dating back to May 2012, with the most spectacular of those events being a late-night gunfight in July 2012 between Garza and Troy Anthony Rosas at Garza’s home in the 600 block of St. John Street in Gonzales.

Judge William Kirkendall with the 2nd 25th Judicial District Court on Wednesday gave Alice Ramos, the woman charged with the traffic death of a San Marcos man last August, the opportunity to enter a plea bargain as early as April 17. She is scheduled for a jury trial on April 29.

Ramos, 50, faces murder charges stemming from the Aug. 25 head-on crash that occurred on U.S. Highway 183 near the Caldwell County line, an accident that claimed the life of Andrew Chet Hamm.

If found guilty, she faces up to 99 years in prison.