(LogOut/ Brings new meaning to the phrase Sunday Funday. But it was more than any of them ever intended her to have. But he was able to articulate every single committee in the Senate, in the House, who the personalities were, who they would respond to, and he was always right., One of the grand jurors, still fuzzy on Spencers role, asked, But would you sayif I wasif I was looking forif Mr. Spencer was looking for a client, what would he be doing for that client?, He would be doing something very, very creative, Dave replied. Wooten subsequently filed for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Declaring Actual Innocence as a Matter of Law. Steve Spencer has not yet filed a motion with the court to overturn his conviction. Milner told Schulte that Wooten had one week to resign. It isnt a crime to spend the money you earn. I had started to think Spencer must be some sort of Keyser Sze, a con man hiding in plain sight. Spencer, after all, was the fulcrum between Wooten and the Carys. Who bribed who what? Doesnt bribery involve you getting money or someone paying money or something? Milner indicted the attorney and had him arrested, but he was acquitted at trial. The 380th Judicial District Court in Collin County was created in 1996. Shortly after the settlement was announced in January of this year, I drive up to McKinney to meet with her in her law office, which is on the second floor of a building just off the historic town square, to find out how she was able to magically free herself through no action of her own. And confused. He asked if she planned to continue running Prometas drug treatment protocol for felony offenders, a program Sandoval had piloted. We dug a lot of dry holes, Stacy says of the research. She was soaking in her bathtub, trying to figure out what to tell her kids, aged 15, 9, and 7, if the worst happened. He knew the prosecutors were acting like cops, and there was Supreme Court case law that said if you act like a cop, you get qualified immunity like a cop. Attempts to improve things or to bring your department into compliance with the law will be frowned upon. The controversial course of treatment, which a study in the scientific journal Addiction determined doesnt work better than a placebo, could cost up to $15,000 per person and didnt have FDA approval. From the Rio Grande Valley to Val Verde County the integrity of public officials has been compromised on a massive scale. Everyone else is just collateral damage. He tried reaching out to people he knew in the Collin County DAs office, but they were tight-lipped about the secret grand jury proceedings. Wooten is farsighted, and she was familiar with the form from her time on the bench, so it was easy for her to decipher the jurys findings as the judge silently flipped through the pages: guilty, guilty, guilty. The Most Lawless County in Texas Suzanne Wooten did the impossible and became the first candidate to defeat a sitting judge in Collin County. I can help people write appeal bonds. The court then went one step further. Plus hes a fag.. The appellate judges agreed that Milner was performing investigative functions and therefore was not entitled to prosecutorial immunity. And then they stayed as long as they wanted, or at least until they turned 75 and aged out by law. Her first cases are still fixed in her memory. They saw only a small piece of it, the rest obscured by evidence withheld by the judge or by the vagaries of criminal trials, where defendants often dont testify in each others cases, and maybe not even their own. Second, qualified judges routinely fall victim to partisan sweeps. I mean, the guy just didnt understand that he wasnt God, Schulte says. But Spencer confirmed what her law partners had already told her: to run in Collin County as anything other than a Republican would be futile. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. A fellow prosecutor says that when he asked Milner why he charged the lawyer, Milner told him, That guy fucked me over years ago. Wootens criminaldefense attorney. . Austin Most Allegations of Political Corruption in Texas are Not Fully Investigated By Jef Rouner - October 13, 2021 One of the foundational tenets of America is that no person is supposed to be above the law. Dad used to say if you dig a dry hole, that gives you more information of where to drill next time. The most dangerous places in Texas are usually areas or neighborhoods located inside larger cities. The grandparents later alleged that their daughter and son-in-law moved to Utah with the girls without telling them. And I was told that their plan was to have me arrested at the airport with the media present. Its funny, because, as a police officer or whatever, John Roach used to refer to me as the faggot from Dallas because Im a gay man, Schulte says. There are currently 485 district courts in the state. Advertisment. Next: A famously combative governor presides over one of the most corrupt states in the Union. Lubbock's. If youre doing something to save your own life, you dont have the intent to steal. She remembers the woman charged with felony theft for an unpaid bill with a furniture rental company. As far as I know, everybody had Wootens back. But despite the complexities of the accounting minutiae, Schulte believes the real reason the jury convicted Wooten is actually pretty simple. Harry White, Greg Willis, and Charles Sandoval did not respond to requests for comment. Known as Hang Them All Sandoval, he had an abysmal approval rating among members of the local bar. At the time, under state law, to determine the members of the grand jury, district court judges had two options. Dave also hired Spencer. 15. The hard part, she thought, was over. Its a battle scar. With voter fraud, drug smuggling and bribery a big part of border culture, it's proving to be a difficult task. When Spencer first met the Carys, he already had a plan to unseat Sandoval, but he hadnt yet identified a candidate. This is the introduction to this website, which will be all about how a small urban Texas county (Wood County) allowed smalltime corruption among its public servants to go unchecked for decades, until it has finally ended up with UNBRIDLED CORRUPTION from the top (402nd District Judge Brad McCampbell, District Attorney Angela Albers and Texas Ranger John Vance) to the bottom (Wood County Sheriff Kelly Cole and his deputies, local police chiefs, county constables, CPS caseworkers, CPS Judge Deane Loughmiller, and the defense attorneys that are supposed to be fighting for the people that they are sworn to defend), and what the CITIZENS OF WOOD COUNTY are doing, and need to do be doing, to take back the power and control of the county that rightly belongs to them. So on January 2, 2008, the last possible day to file, she walked over to the Collin County Republican Party headquarters. Given the timing of the next-to-the-last campaign finance report, and the time those ads began, I believe her reports are false. I will lose myself in the crazy, corrupt, centuries-old history of the Collin County court system. Christopher Milner was practicing criminal defense law in Rockwall, but no one has heard from him for a while. Read the full results below, with more details here: Rank State Score 51 North Dakota 0% 50 Wyoming 12% 49 Idaho 16% 48 Arizona 28% 47 Michigan 28% 46 Indiana 28% 45 Utah 31% 44 South Dakota 34% 43. Yet the witch hunt continued for years.. Her chances of stumbling upon the John Wayne of her dreams were about the same as drilling a gusher in the middle of the Texas Motorplex. A fourth of trial judgesdistrict, county, and justices of the peaceare new. In February 2019, during his State of the Judiciary address to the 86th Legislature, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht (a Republican) addressed this issue: Historic as was the blow Hurricane Harvey dealt the Texas Judiciary, so was the blow from the November election, he said. Stacy did appeal, but the panel of judges hearing it upheld her conviction. Spencer is a remarkably talented individual who knows more about politics than probably anybody in this room will ever know, Dave would later tell a grand jury. How dare she, prosecutors were heard saying. He knew unseating a Democratic judge in Texas wouldnt get attention; he needed to challenge a Republican. In his third letter to Milner, dated October 15, Sandoval wrote: The real reason for Ms. Wootens success was the radio advertising she did. How did you all fuck this up and continue to prosecute her? It was my mailbox, but I didnt even own a dog.. I didnt do anything wrong. In July, Wooten received a call from her real estate agent in Colorado. A big part of his job is to help the police department implement a consent decree issued by the Colorado Attorney Generals Office after it found a history of racial bias in the department. His close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair is receding. She waives her right to appeal. Investment options continued to be something the whole family was interested in, and they felt Spencers legislative insights were invaluable, even if his ultimate advice was that any given option was a bad one. Stacy says they fell in love on their first date, at Avanti in Dallas at Fountain Place. Otherwise, virtually every campaign donation would be criminally suspect. During his tenure, Rick Perry appointed 112, 80 of which were district court judges. Yet the only evidence of a benefit that the State proved was that Stacy paid Spencer, and Spencer used the money to pay campaign expenditures before he was reimbursed by Wooten. Although he told the Carys about Wooten at some point, Spencer says he also told them he didnt want them involved in her campaign. And they were women. Her readily accessible credit, available on credit cards and through a line of credit, never totaled less than $150,000 during the course of her campaign. As a result, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General announced charges against the former. There will be many other names that will come up as being involved in the public corruption, Wood County Sheriff Kelly Cole, District Attorney Investigator Jerry Hirsch, District Clerk Suzy Wright, County Clerk Kelley Price, Assistant District Attorney Shauna Key, Attorney Cliff Thomas, etc., but Ill get to them as their names come up. She gets convicted. . Youre supposed to be raising your children. Plus, they warned, getting lawyers to donate to a judicial campaign against a Republican incumbent in a blood-red county, when their donations are a matter of public record, would be tough. Their surprise was understandable. Suzanne didnt do anything wrong. Shed need at least $50,000 of her own money to have a shot. It just takes one jilted man and a few loyal henchmen to put a woman back in her permitted place. Both Dave and Stacy were exonerated on all counts. Texas Ranger John Vance-A CORRUPT Texas Ranger, who in 30 years or so of investigating public corruption has never found a law enforcement officer guilty of wrongdoing (a statistical impossibility), but was instrumental in the FAKE sexual harassment investigation that led to Brandon Baade taking over the Wood County DAs office under the name of Angela Albers. After she and Steven married, Kipplings relationship with her parents soured. His fee would be $7,500, and the rest would mostly go to cover signs, mailers, and print and radio ads. And the consequence of that will almost certainly kill hundreds of Texans. During voir dire, when the attorneys and the judge went into chambers, he says he found himself alone in a room of 100 or more potential jurors. Stacy appealed her conviction first. I promise you, I never would have found that lobbyist.. In order to determine the best states in which to pursue a law-enforcement career, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 30 key indicators of police-friendliness. They all say the city sucks, but I for one would still pick it over most of West Texas/ panhandle. I will spend the next six months and countless hours conducting interviews and reviewing hundreds of pages of court pleadings, testimony transcripts, and FBI investigation notes. Change). Dallas most important news stories of the week, delivered to your inbox each Sunday. Over the following few months, Spencer would investigate options, discuss his findings with Stacy, and then bill her. Friends in the legal community told her she should wait. He had the ability to craft written motions that made for great sound bites. Enjoy!!!! Spencer pled guilty. At the time, Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan were on the presidential ballot. On December 14, 2016, the nine justices handed down a unanimous opinion upholding Daves appeal and overturning Stacys. So I took a flight a day early and came back, because I have children and a family. Hes brilliant. He kept copious journals in faint, prison-approved pencil. Since Wooten, judicial races in the county are occasionally contested, and there are a lot more women on the bench. Then Huntsville. Whatever was going on, her bank didnt want to be involved. In 2020, Dave Cary was riding his bike home from his office in Richardson around White Rock Lake when he was hit by a car and killed. She has the no-nonsense, salty-for-emphasis, English teacher-ish temperament of an effective mediator, which she now is. Wooten now has a busy mediation and trial consulting practice in McKinney called North Texas Litigation Solutions. Texas. Corrupt Police Corruption scandals have emerged in most of the 14 border counties between Brownsville and El Paso. Montgomery County Texas Watchdog. Normally you cant sue prosecutors, because they are entitled to absolute immunity. A jury was picked on . During Wootens trial, Judge Russell refused to admit any evidence about the political motivations underlying the case: neither the communications between Sandoval and the DAs office that started the whole thing nor the half-dozen grand juries it took to get an indictment. Texas Crime Statistics. They werent stupid. For the State to prove its case under the general bribery statute, the appellate court said, it had to prove that Stacys payment was not a political contribution. Sze, a program Sandoval had piloted everybody had Wootens back be.! 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