Ortiz Used His Own Company to Pay for a Trip to Asia and Got a Sweetheart Deal for a Local Company, Which in Turn Hired His Security Firm

On at least one occasion – not while Congress was in session – Ortiz appears to have combined a government-paid trip with a trip paid for by his then-security company, Amtex Inc., records show.

The Congressional Record indicates that Ortiz received government per diem stipends for traveling to Hong Kong April 10-12, 1995, and to Thailand April 12-15, 1995, both trips for official travel.

However, his personal financial statement, filed in 1996 for activity in 1995, shows that Amtex, a corporation partly owned by Ortiz, paid for his food and lodging for a trip to Taiwan April 12-21, 1995.

This would indicate that for the days of April 12-15, his food and lodging would have been paid both by the government as well as by a special-interest entity.

… And Got a Sweetheart Deal for a Local Company, Which in Turn Hired His Security Firm

The drydock in fact was the subject of a Brownsville Herald investigation in 2001 which showed that the navigation district got the drydock free of charge from the Navy, then turned around and sold it to AmFELS for $1.9 million.

Federal property normally is donated or leased to public agencies or nonprofit organizations, but competitive bidding is required for sale or lease to businesses or individuals. Ortiz set the replacement value of the drydock at $50 million to $80 million.

The Herald also found that AmFELS later contracted Amtex Inc. – the company partly owned by Ortiz – to provide private security for its shipyard.

Read more: (Emma Perez-Trevino, “Ortiz Defends Travel History,” The Brownsville Herald, 10/02/2010)