Archive for the ‘WillCo’ Category

Something’s happening here…

Friday, August 16th, 2024

…and what it is, ain’t exactly clear.

The former CFO of the Austin Independent School District, who was previously charged with insurance fraud in Williamson County, had the charges dropped yesterday by the WillCo DA’s office.

Austin ISD officials said on Thursday they received a letter from the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office declining to prosecute the insurance fraud charge. The Williamson County District Attorney has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

More from KVUE (archived, because they’ve become really bad about ad blockers):

KVUE obtained the arrest warrant for Ramos from the Round Rock Police Department to investigate allegations of fraud, which authorities determined was not directly related to his work with the district.
According to the warrant, Ramos was accused of insurance fraud regarding a claim of $5,422.64.
However, the district said Thursday evening it would reinstate Ramos after learning the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office would not prosecute any charges related to his personal affairs.

According to KVUE, he has been re-instated by the district, but his previously scheduled resignation takes effect today. He apparently does not plan to return to the district, but he leaves “in good standing”.

I feel like I should apologize to the former CFO for including him in the “flaming hyenas” watch. But I was very scrupulous about not including his name (even though it was in the linked press reports) because this seemed like a situation that had the potential to be a tempest in a teapot, and I wanted to wait and see how it shook out. I’m glad I did.

Meanwhile, the evidence tampering trial of former WillCo Sheriff Robert Chody and former WillCo prosecutor Jason Nassour was going on this week.

Emphasis on the “was”. The judge has placed the trial on hold.

Why? Well, it looks like the prosecution’s case is completely borked, and they’ve asked for a hold.

“The state has been looking forward to having a full and fair trial… [However], the state can’t continue at this time,” a state prosecutor said Thursday.
The filing indicates the state cannot prosecute parts of the indictment due to it being “preempted by federal law.”

More from Fox 7:

A Live PD crew was with Williamson County deputies when Javier Ambler was taken into custody for a traffic violation. The chase had ended in Austin and with Ambler dying from a heart attack.
Austin police, who were in charge of the scene, never got a warrant to seize the Live PD camera equipment, and the court has ruled federal law allowed the production team to leave with their gear.
Judge Sage, on several occasions, pointed out to prosecutors that because of the law, it didn’t matter who allowed the crew to leave with the equipment because the officer on scene never got a warrant.

…

Prosecutors are trying to show the loss of the video is a violation of the Michael Morton act which requires prosecutors to keep and provide evidence to defense attorneys.
But defense attorneys, during cross-examination, showed the jury a section of the contract which also hurt that argument. It was noted Live PD was required to retain and turn over any video, if ordered to do so by a court.

So if I’m understanding this right (and I Am Not A Lawyer), the prosecution’s argument is that the loss of the footage constitutes evidence tampering. But they’ve been precluded from making that argument in court because of 1) the contract which specified that “Live PD” had to turn over any video if a court order was obtained, and nobody could be arsed to get a court order until it was too late, and 2) Federal law, which states that law enforcement can’t confiscate gear and footage without a warrant, and APD (who was in charge at the scene) didn’t get a warrant.

I guess the WillCo DA’s office is fighting inflation by running a BOGO special…on nothing-burgers.

(Edited to add: technically, the evidence tampering trial is taking place in Travis County. But since former WillCo officials are involved, I’m letting the nothing-burger comment stand.)

Posted in IANAL, Law, Politics, WillCo | Comments Closed

Many small bloodsucking insects.

Monday, June 5th, 2023

I usually don’t like to cover politics here, even Texas politics, because it tends to drive me up a tree.

In this case, I haven’t seen anyone else pick up on this, and it’s an interesting story.

The Texas Legislature has eliminated annual safety inspections for cars, starting in 2025.

The Libertarian side of me thinks this is swell: as far as it was concerned, the annual inspection didn’t do much of anything except put money in the pockets of certified state inspection stations for “adjusting your headlights” and “replacing your wiper blades”.

“This will make the roads more dangerous. I’m sure you guys have thought about that. I could also talk about the small businesses that will be put out of business and many people will have to be fired and lose their job,” owner of San Antonio-based Official Inspection Station Charissa Barnes said. “If this bill passes, then it would destroy our inspection industry, right in the middle of us bringing on emissions testing.”

The less Libertarian side of me is skeptical for a few reasons. While I think most people are motivated not to drive with bad tires and brakes, and those kind of things can be picked up when you take your car in for an oil change anyway, there probably are some folks who got some warning out of the annual inspection process. Then again, the people who did drive with bad brakes and bad tires probably would be driving even if they didn’t have an inspection or registration, and these days the odds of getting caught seem to be slim.

If safety is really a concern, the insurance companies can start requiring a “voluntary” inspection: you get a discount if you get your car inspected yearly at an approved facility. Or even better, no inspection, no insurance. Worst case, you go through the assigned risk pool.

Secondly, this doesn’t eliminate the state inspection fee: the state is still going to make you pay $7.50 (or $16.75 if it is a new car) as part of the annual registration.

Also, if your car is registered in one of the areas that requires emissions testing (that includes Travis, Williamson, and Harris counties, among others: full list in the article) you still have to get your car emissions tested before you can register it. (There’s an exception for cars that are 25 or more years old: I managed to get out of emissions testing for a few years before my old Honda blew a head gasket.)

I thought most states still required at least a safety inspection, but I was wrong, according to Wikipedia: “Fifteen states have a periodic (annual or biennial) safety inspection program, while Maryland requires a safety inspection and Alabama requires a VIN inspection on sale or transfer of vehicles which were previously registered in another state.”

Interestingly, Louisiana requires a safety inspection, and “New Orleans requires a “brake tag”. In addition to the state requirements, if the vehicle is registered in New Orleans, the brakes must be tested annually with a short stop test.”

Must be fun to get your car inspected in the Big Easy.

Posted in Cars, Politics, Roads, Safety, Texas, Travis County, WillCo | 2 Comments »

Memo from the police beat.

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

There have been a few mildly interesting police stories in recent days. Here’s a round-up.

1. The police chief of the Manor ISD Police (yeah, the school district police, not the city police) has been “placed on administrative leave“.

The accusations against him seem to amount to two things: “falsifying timesheets”, and “improperly donating used cellphones to a local domestic violence shelter”.

The defense attorney representing Chief Shane Sexton and three other officers in the force, said credible evidence has been submitted to the district to show that all timesheets have been accurate.
Sexton’s attorney Brad Heilman said Verizon Wireless donated the cellphones to the department, came at no cost to the district and were no longer being used.

Manor is about 34 miles down the road from here, and has an estimated population (as of 2019) of about 13,000 people. Small town politics…but I’ll come back to that in a bit. (I also have some questions about why small school districts need their own police departments, but that gets into other issues: how big does a school district have to be to justify their own police force? Does not having a police force for a small school district divert resources from a small city police force? Is it just a question of which pocket the money comes out of? I haven’t though through all of this yet.)

2. Lorenzo Hernandez used to be a deputy with the Williamson County sheriff’s department. He also appeared on “Live TV”, back when they were in WillCo and “Live PD” was a thing.

And now he’s been charged with “assault and official oppression”.

In the arrest affidavit, a Williamson County detective wrote that the woman Hernandez is accused of assaulting “did not pose a threat.”
“Defendant Hernandez escalates the event through an intentional, unreasonable use of force against [the victim] by placing his hand on her throat directly below her chin,” the affidavit said, adding that Hernandez then squeezed her throat and pushed her back into the apartment wall.
“The intentional use of force by Defendant Hernandez by placing his hand on the throat of [the victim] is unlawful, as no exception provides Defendant Hernandez the justification for the use of said force.”

3. This one is in my own backyard, but I’ve avoided writing about it. The story broke late Friday afternoon, and I’ve been trying to get a little more clarity about what’s happening.

The Lakeway police chief, Todd Radford, resigned on Friday. His resignation was not voluntary.

“I stand before you tonight more than likely for the last time as your chief of police, regrettably so. Upon request I am submitting my resignation,” Radford told the council. “Over the last 14 years, I have been every other week in this chamber with multiple volunteers who have sat in your seats as council members and I have served honorably, in my opinion, for three mayors and felt like I have done above and beyond what has been asked of me. And I believe the agency has done so as well. To receive the number of accolades we have has not been easy and I feel like it should be better recognized.”

There is a lot of speculation on NextDoor about what’s going on. Most of it I find unreliable. The theory that I do find compelling is: this is related to a move by the council to eliminate contracts for all city employees and convert them to at-will status. This is something I can get behind for most city employees, but not for the police chief and police officers. I think law enforcement people should be on a contract basis – one which allows termination for clearly defined reasons. I don’t think a cop who murders or rapes someone should keep their job, but I don’t want them being fired because they didn’t fix a ticket for the mayor’s brother-in-law.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics, Texas, Travis County, WillCo | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#66 in a series)

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Whoa.

A Williamson County grand jury has indicted Sheriff Robert Chody on an evidence tampering charge in the destruction of reality TV show footage that showed deputies chasing and using force on a Black man who died last year.

(Previous background on the case in question from WCD.)

Former Williamson County general counsel Jason Nassour, who was also at the scene of the deadly March 2019 incident, also was indicted on a evidence tampering charge. The charge, a third-degree felony, is punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

…

Prosecutors have said they could not disclose what they learned about Chody’s role in the video destruction because of the ongoing case.

But here’s something interesting.

The contract between Williamson County and “Live PD” producers in place at the time of Ambler’s death allowed the show to destroy unaired footage within 30 days unless a court order or other state or federal law required it to be retained.
“Live PD” host Dan Abrams said in television interviews and in a post on his web site that sheriff’s officials initially asked producers to preserve the video. Two months after Ambler’s death, Chody told them the investigation was completed. At that point, Abrams said, producers destroyed the video.

If I understand the story correctly, though, both the WillCo and Travis County DAs offices were still investigating this as a death in custody.

Yadda yadda presumption of innocence yadda yadda “growing scrutiny” of the sheriff’s office.

The charge against Chody comes 39 days before the Nov. 3 election. The first-term sheriff is being challenged by Democrat Mike Gleason, who is retired after serving 24 years in the Williamson County sheriff’s office.

Posted in Law, Politics, WillCo | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 10, 2020.

Wednesday, June 10th, 2020

Not one, not two, but three different people all sent me the news that “COPS” has apparently been cancelled. (It was on infinite hyenas “indefinite hiatus”.)

They know me rather well, don’t they?

Edited to add: Heh. From Twitter:

In the meantime, “Live PD” is also on infinite hyenas. And there’s an interesting development that I missed until the “COPS” story broke.

Back in March of 2019, a man named Javier Ambler was involved in a chase with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department.

Williamson County sheriff’s deputies attempted to pull Ambler over March 28, 2019, after he failed to dim the headlights of his SUV to oncoming traffic. Twenty-eight minutes later, the 40-year-old black father of two sons lay dying on a North Austin street after deputies held him down and used Tasers on him four times while a crew from A&E’s show “Live PD” filmed.
The former postal worker repeatedly pleaded for mercy, telling deputies he had congestive heart failure and couldn’t breathe. He cried, “Save me,” before deputies deployed a final shock.

Mr. Ambler died in custody. There is body cam video from an Austin PD officer that has been released to the Statesman and to one of the local TV stations. There’s also bodycam video from the WillCo officers, but that hasn’t been released.

A Williamson County internal affairs investigation found deputies did nothing wrong. But Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore, whose office is tasked with investigating Ambler’s death with Austin police detectives, told the Statesman that she plans to take the case to a grand jury.
Moore accused [WillCo Sheriff Robert] Chody of stonewalling and refusing to provide evidence.

There’s also video from the “Live PD” cameras. At least, there was:

A&E confirmed Tuesday that “video of the tragic death of Javier Ambler was captured by body cams worn on the officers involved as well by the producers of Live PD who were riding with certain officers involved.”
It said that the incident did not occur while the show was airing live and that the video was not broadcast later.
A&E’s statement said that Austin investigators had not asked for the video or to interview show producers. “As is the case with all footage taken by Live PD producers, we no longer retained the unaired footage after learning that the investigation had concluded,” the network said in a statement.

As you may recall, Bob, the WillCo county commissioners were already in a micturition contest with the sheriff over whether “Live PD” should even be there in the first place, as well as who could have access to the raw “Live PD” footage. Now the whole thing’s blown up even more, to the point where three out of four county commissioners want the sheriff to resign:

Chody on Tuesday called the allegations of stonewalling “misleading” and said commissioners’ calls for his resignation were misinformed and politically motivated.
“The Williamson County Sheriff’s Department remains ready and willing to participate in the investigation being conducted by the Travis County DA’s office,” Chody said in a statement. “However the Travis County DA’s office has not contacted us for any reason related to this investigation. Any attempt to say we have slowed or impeded the investigation is absolutely false.”
In a response, Moore said the investigation was conducted by the Austin police special investigations unit “with our oversight.”
“I stand by my representations regarding the lack of cooperation,” she said.
As more than a dozen protesters gathered outside the Commissioners Court’s regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, Williamson County commissioners had strong words for Chody.
“I, like you, am outraged over the circumstance of his death, shocked at Sheriff Chody’s failure to cooperate with the investigation into Mr. Ambler’s death and heartbroken for his family and loved ones who almost 15 months later still have no answers,” said Williamson County Commissioner Cynthia Long. “Sheriff Chody must resign immediately.”
Commissioner Terri Cook also said Chody should resign.
“I have no confidence that he has the temperament, operational intelligence, administrative ability nor the people skills to handle the job,” Cook said.

Posted in Obits, Politics, TV, WillCo | 3 Comments »

Dumb de dumb dumb.

Thursday, July 19th, 2018

Dumb de dumb dumb…

The stories I am about to link to are true. I haven’t changed any names, because none of these people are innocent.

Dumb: threatening a judge.
Dumber: threatening two judges.
Dumbest: threatening two judges, one of whom was already shot and wounded by another idiot three years ago.

“I have every right to hang your (expletive),” Holgate said in a message according to the affidavit. “You have every goddamn right to be afraid of me. I am the law and you shouldn’t have crossed me.”
In another message, Holgate threatened to kill one of the judges, according to the document.
“I have the right to (expletive) kill you. You understand that?” He said. “…But we will see if we can resolve it. I don’t think we can, I think we are just going to hang your (expletive).”

And by the way…

…his arrest affidavit said he identified himself at the beginning of each of his threatening messages.

Meanwhile, over in Williamson County, the relatively new sheriff and prolific tweeter Robert Chody is in a micturition contest with one of the county commissioners, Dan Gattis.

Sheriff Chody has opinions about how county government is run, especially when it comes to sewage leaks, and does not hesitate to share them. This, in turn, seems to upset Judge Gattis:

“He stuck his finger in my chest — he didn’t actually touch me — and said, ‘Tell that sheriff if he doesn’t quit tweeting, I’m going zero his budget out,’” Chief Deputy Tim Ryle told the American-Statesman on Wednesday. “My comment to him was, ‘Judge, are you sure you want to say that?’ He said, ‘Yes, tell him to stop tweeting about me and my people.’

This little spat wouldn’t be noteworthy to me, except for what happened next:

Gattis’ alleged threat crossed a legal line, say Williamson County prosecutors, who filed a misdemeanor official oppression charge against him. Law enforcement officials issued a summons for Gattis to appear in state District Court in lieu of being arrested.

Yes, you read that correctly: the WillCo DA filed criminal charges against a county commissioner (who, by the way, is not running for re-election this year) because he shot his mouth off.

Personally, I think they’re all idiots: the sheriff’s office and the DA for filing charges over a political disagreement, and Judge Gattis for making empty threats. (“I’m going zero his budget out”. Yeah, Judge, you’re going to zero out the sheriff’s department budget. Call me when the pigs start flying.)

Posted in Law, Politics, Stupid, WCDA, WillCo | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 21, 2018.

Wednesday, March 21st, 2018

Nelda Wells Spears, former Travis County tax assessor-collector. I remember having to write checks to her, back in the pre-Internet days…

Earl Cooley, prominent Austin SF fan, influential early BBS guy, and a personal friend.

The Mad Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight. They haven’t released a name yet, but even if they did, I wouldn’t give him the publicity.

Posted in Austin, Explosives, Geek, Law, Travis County, WillCo | 1 Comment »

Memo from the police beat.

Saturday, March 17th, 2018

I’m a couple of days behind on these: I plead just sheer being busy.

Three APD officers have been indicted by a grand jury. Two of the officers were involved in a single indicident, and the third in a seperate one.

In the first incident, the two officers responded to a shooting downtown. A group of people were around a guy who’d been shot. Officers ordered everybody onto the ground. One guy walked away and ended up getting Tasered.

Manley said the officers were indicted because their written reports of the incident did not match up with what was captured on the officers’ body-worn cameras.“Specifically, the individual was described in the report as on his feet and walking away from the officers, and it is clear on the video that that is not what happened in this instant,” he said.

The third case involves a prostitution arrest: details on both of these cases are kind of vague. But:

“We have policies that allow our officers to use force when necessary to effect an arrest or to protect themselves or others,” Manley said, but in the cases revealed Thursday, “the supervisors who reviewed them had concerns and forwarded them up the chain, and they resulted in these investigations and ultimately with these indictments.”

Unrelated, because this took place in Williamson County: a former deputy with the WillCo sheriff’s department has been charged with punching a 12-year-old girl in the face.

A witness told police [Jack] Danford came to the restaurant and had a few beers on the patio after “drinking all day” and started playing with a dog, the affidavit says. A 12-year-old girl came up and started playing with it, too, and Danford “quickly jumped up from his seat and tackled” her, the document says.

…

Another witness said he heard the girl scream and ran up to see Danford punching her in the face and that he and others started punching and kicking Danford to get him off her, the affidavit says.

…

According to court documents, he told police as he was being arrested that he was drugged. Danford would not loosen his grip on an officer’s wrist until getting hit several times with a police baton and taken into custody, the documents say.

He’d previously been charged with resisting arrest and public intoxication. Now he gets to add “injury to a child” to his collection.

Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody said the unusual nature of the arrest led him to fire Danford last week.
“When you reflect negatively on our department, there’s a price to pay,” he said.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Politics, WillCo | Comments Closed

Random notes: June 13, 2016.

Monday, June 13th, 2016

I was busy all day yesterday, and I have nothing profound or interesting to say about Orlando. Go look at the smarter people on my blogroll if you’re looking for that: I’d suggest Tam and Lawrence as good starting points.

In other news: there’s now an official lawsuit pending to remove Williamson Count District Attorney Jana Duty from office. And I’m thinking I need a WCDA tag.

I missed this until Lawrence sent me a link to a Daily Mail story: Sean Whent, the police chief in Oakland, resigned on Thursday.

Chief Anthony Batts quit in 2011 after receiving a scathing report from Robert Warshaw, the court monitor assigned to ensure that the Police Department was implementing reforms ordered by a federal judge. Batts’ successor, Howard Jordan, left suddenly in 2013 amid a spike in violent crime and a wave of anger over how police were handling Occupy protests. Interim Chief Anthony Toribio, who came in after Jordan, lasted only two days.

The general belief seems to be that Whent was working to stabilize and clean up the department, but there were a whole host of recent scandals on his watch:

Officer Cullen Faeth was charged with misdemeanor battery, public intoxication and trespassing after he allegedly tried to break into a home in Oakland’s Redwood Heights neighborhood in December and attacked a woman who lived there. In February, Officer Matthew Santos was arrested for allegedly pulling his gun on a man painting Santos’ apartment in Emeryville. Santos was fired shortly thereafter.

But the biggest issue is a messy sex scandal. Five officers have been placed on administrative leave so far.

The woman at the center of the sex scandal is claiming she had sex with two dozen current and former officers in five cities, a newspaper investigation published Sunday found.

More from the Mercury News:

…she slept with three of the 24 officers — all from Oakland’s police department — before she turned 18 last August.

She also said that two Oakland officers provided her confidential police information, including tips on scheduled anti-prostitution stings…

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law, Politics, WCDA, WillCo | 1 Comment »

Followups.

Thursday, June 9th, 2016

Theresa Saldana: NYT. A/V Club.

Lawrence was kind enough to throw me a backlink and add some additional context to the Jana Duty story. Latest update: even though Duty will be out after the election, “Williamson County business leaders” are demanding that she resign now. In addition to her troubles with the State Bar, the people demanding her resignation are claiming she’s pretty much stopped showing up for work:

Justice of the Peace Bill Gravell also spoke at the news conference and said that Duty “has largely been absent from her post.”
“This makes doing my job as a judge in the community more challenging and very difficult to serve the people of Williamson County effectively,” Gravell said.

And Mike the Musicologist sent me a link to a CNN story about Rear Admiral Robert Gilbeau pleading guilty to one count of “making a false statement to investigators”.

Two things about that story:

1) Rear Admiral Gilbeau’s plea is related to the ongoing investigation into the “Fat Leonard” scandal.

2) Linked it before, I’ll link it again: “Really, seriously, just shut the fuck up.”

Posted in Law, Obits, Politics, WCDA, WillCo | 1 Comment »

Annals of law (#10 in a series)

Wednesday, June 8th, 2016

Two sort of random notes:

1. Jana Duty, the elected district attorney of Williamson County (Williamson County is just up the road from Austin/Travis County: it covers Round Rock and Georgetown) has been placed “on probation” by the State Bar of Texas for 18 months.

Duty will still be able to practice law but will have to comply with the terms of her probation.

Why? “Professional misconduct”. Specifically, Ms. Duty was accused of withholding evidence in a murder case.

“It is unknown to the court why Ms. Duty intentionally and willfully withheld the means to view time stamps on the Walmart Surveillance video other than from Ms. Duty’s statement that “(defense counsel) acted so horribly to me during the first trial, that I just — I didn’t want to speak to them,’” the court document said.

Here’s the Wilco DA’s website. I find that quote from Article 2.01 deeply ironic.

2. On Monday, a judge for the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals ruled that Sonia Cacy was innocent of murder.

Ms. Cacy was sentenced to 99 years in prison in 1993: she allegedly doused her uncle with “an accelerant” and set him on fire.

Except there were problems with the evidence.

During at punishment retrial in 1996, her new attorney enlisted Dr. Gerald Hurst, the late Cambridge-educated chemist from Austin, to evaluate the forensic evidence that clinched conviction against her. Hurst discovered that the original tests, conducted by Joe Castorena of the Bexar County Forensics Lab, had been completely misread. The results didn’t find the indicators of an accelerant as he claimed. Castorena, a toxicologist by training, had in fact identified the products of pyrolysis—compounds created by burning plastic, which in many ways are similar to those of an accelerant.

Lots of problems:

…Castorena, the toxicologist, admitted in a letter to her [Cacy’s – DB] counsel, Dallas lawyer Gary Udashen, that the clothing samples he’d tested had been contaminated in either the morgue or the lab. Thus, his baffling reasoning went, anyone who didn’t know about the contamination couldn’t accurately interpret the results. Asked why he never reported this, Castorena replied, “nobody asked me.”

The full court has to concur before Ms. Cacy is officially exonerated, but as the TM article notes, that almost seems to be a formality now.

Posted in Law, Politics, WCDA, WillCo | 1 Comment »