The DAO has acted with seeming disregard for the personal, emotional, and financial costs to the individuals concerned., They also pointed out that Roach had been absent for at least one-third of the days normally worked by others in the courthouse, and that he was present at the seating of the grand jury and declined, in open court, to challenge any member of it as unfit.. What followed is the unbelievable, epic tale of the craziest case in the history of jurisprudence. The will of the people is [Wooten] wins. The Most Lawless County in Texas Suzanne Wooten did the impossible and became the first candidate to defeat a sitting judge in Collin County. 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. You have to mean to steal. This time, Sandoval named Jennifer the sole managing conservator of the girls, sanctioned Dave $50,000 for filing numerous frivolous pleadings, and ordered him to pay Jennifers attorneys fees in the amount of $417,000. The woman testified that she didnt pay because her boyfriend beat her up. Bonham. After her divorce from her first husband, she was living on a working cattle ranch outside of Waxahachie, breeding horses and miniature donkeys, when she decided to adopt two children from Russia. The email said that prosecutors should only conduct bench trials in Wootens court if they didnt care about the outcome and it was the only way to reasonably dispose of the case. They celebrated until 2 in the morning. 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. He continued to focus on his appeal and wrote a book, Normandy: A Fathers Ship and a Sons Curiosity, about Stacys dad and his service in World War II. Steve Spencer has not yet filed a motion with the court to overturn his conviction. Given the timing of the next-to-the-last campaign finance report, and the time those ads began, I believe her reports are false. There was nothing left for her to do but wrap up her practice and order her robe. Meanwhile, Spencer, her media manager, enlisted the help of Hank Clements, an Austin-based lawyer and lobbyist with judicial campaign experience. John Roach Sr. was running uncontested for the 199th. As of August 2022, Governor Greg Abbott had appointed 59 state court judges, 49 of which were district court judges. If you don't know who Shaun is, you can find earlier segments here . The Addison-based criminal defense attorney thrives on the challenge and plays to win. His wife, Judge Jill Willis, still sits on the 429th. This story originally appeared in the October issue of D Magazine. He still sounds like a cop, deep-voiced and authoritative, and he peppers his conversation with the easy profanity of someone used to making small talk with felons and fellow officers. He awarded Dave primary custody, the thing he had wanted all along. He had the ability to craft written motions that made for great sound bites. 10. District courts are the general jurisdiction trial courts in Texas. Once they were in, they were in. It was followed by Los Angeles with 1,547 and New York's Southern Judicial District with 1,360. 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 I'll get to them as their names come up. I was like, thats where I wanna go fishing.. Governor Orders Major Election Investigation on Most Corrupt County in Texas. Were going to appeal this until the end of time.. He thought the consultant might be able to help develop a government sales pipeline for his companys tech products. But the prosecutors had the whole picture. Write to [emailprotected]. Friends in the legal community told her she should wait. New York does come up in No. Shortly thereafter, when she stopped by her bank, they told her they were going to have to close her account because they had received grand jury subpoenas for her bank records. They were really trying to make sure their little apple cart didnt get upset.. And a sentencing document filed by Assistant Attorney General White cites a litany of concerns, including: Spencer had been found guilty of writing bad checks in the recent past; he had pled no contest to felony insurance fraud in Utah with regard to a $37,000 claim for a lost diamond, which he says was dislodged from his wifes wedding ring during a car accident; he had failed to pay a $26,000 bill related to Wootens campaign, which she had reimbursed him for; and he had violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1990 while in the Air Force. The reason I laughed was theres not a district judge in the world thats not going to quash this indictment.. Where are these places you wonder? And a member of Roachs staff now holds Wootens former bench in the 380th District Court. And thats how I talk to my kids about it. Before Wooten was sworn in on January 1, 2009, Charles Sandoval made his first attempts at sabotage. Theres another legal issue mentioned in Whites sentencing document, however, that cuts to the heart of the matter. Within a month of getting married, however, Daves ongoing custody dispute went yet again before Judge Sandoval. We just pissed some people off.. Im not sure theres anything he couldnt do., The juror continued to press for more specifics. In Collin County, where courts utilized the second pick-a-pal method, it was possible to end up with a grand jury made up entirely of strategic, political appointees. In a daze, she followed her lawyers, Peter Schulte and Toby Shook, to the attorney-client conference room for a 10-minute break before sentencing. There were thousands and thousands of dollars of charges at Best Buy, Nordstrom, the Polo Factory Store, Steinway Piano Gallery, Cowgirls and Lace, Crunchless Abs, Neiman Marcusthe list goes on. Dave filled his time writing her letters and working on his appeal. He was elected to fill the vacancy left by Suzanne Wooten. (LogOut/ The hard part, she thought, was over. City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas > Lubbock: Most corrupt city I have ever lived in (Lubbock, West: waterpark, school) . 15. Suite 2100 And even if it had, it wasnt a crime. So when he saw the report of her exoneration in the Dallas Morning News, his one thought was, Geez, sue the shit out of these people.. They could select 20 to 125 prospective jurors the same way district court jurors are selected (i.e., randomly through voter registration and drivers license rolls), or they could appoint three to five people to serve as grand jury commissioners who wouldnt serve themselves, but who would in turn select 15 to 40 prospective jurors each. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Sometimes Im the guy, he says. The usual process is for the police to do their investigation and make an arrest, and then they turn the case over to the DAs office. He was a young lawyer when he met Wooten in the summer of 2008, only a few years out of law school. It was because the jurors couldnt believe the way judges are elected in Texas. The Collin County Republican Party had cashed her filing check, but they had reported Sandovals seat as unopposed. He knew unseating a Democratic judge in Texas wouldnt get attention; he needed to challenge a Republican. Spencer arrives for our meeting at the coffee shop in the Hilton Anatole dressed in a black zip-up polo, jeans, and gray loafers. Now, she was seated at the defense table, dressed not in a robe but in a conservative pantsuit, her blond hair pulled back in a basic bun. Her lowest point came the night before the verdict. That for this money, youre going to do X.. Wooten sentenced him to treatment. Sandoval and Roach have retired. But when it deals with allegations of political contributionsand political contributions is a broad termany money associated with a campaign must be done under section 36.02(a)(4) [of the Texas Penal Code], which requires the prosecution to show direct evidence of an express agreement. 44 South Carolina Shutterstock Public corruption convictions per 10,000 residents: 20 Adverse action reports filed from 1990 to 2020: 11,763 Medical malpractice reports filed from 1990 to 2020: 4,737 Even though hes not a lobbyist and has never been to college, he says he has an effective network of people to help him if he doesnt have the answer. I didnt choose this lifestyle. 11 on the list, and California falls to 34th. I didnt know anybody that thought she committed bribery., Another lawyer made a similar clerical mistake in the use of a partially filled out form that still contained facts related to a different case. Hes just a very intelligent guy. Dave was the last man standing. And he was actually out of jail on parole when he did it. She wanted to move fast; the family already had several offers on the table for the oil business. At the time, under state law, to determine the members of the grand jury, district court judges had two options. Civil penalties can be assessed for violations of up to three times the amount of the political contributions accepted in violation of the section. Judge of the 429th | 2009 present, Greg Willis, (husband of Jill Willis) 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. Poinsett said hed put him in touch with a guy who was just as passionate about protecting families from government intervention as Dave was but who had a whole lot more experience. Milner indicted the attorney and had him arrested, but he was acquitted at trial. And he had 162 years of history proving that his 464-vote margin entitled him to what was essentially a lifetime appointment. EDINBURG, Texas - When it comes to corrupt public officials aiding the smugglers of drugs and illegal immigrants, this is the dirtiest town, in the most crooked county, in the most bribable state along the U.S.-Mexico border, court records show. He asked if Stacy might be interested in hiring him to do some research and consulting on her behalf. Former Chief of the Special Crimes Division of the CCDAO. The third problem with the current system is that the Texas Constitution allows the governor to fill interim court vacancies (due to death or retirement) before an election can be held. Just come on out and tell us you did it. It just seemed like there had to be some kernel of truth to the whole bribery thing, some questionable if not illegal activity that allowed the Collin County DAs office to prosecute four innocent people, convict three of them, and force the fourth to plead guilty. At the time, she was 34 and visibly pregnant with her youngest child. It isnt a crime to walk your dog to the mailbox. Suzanne Wooten had 10 minutes to decide her own fate. "Southern Texas, specifically the Rio Grande Valley, is the most corrupt area along the border, " said Guadalupe Correa, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Brownsville. When Wooten was finally indicted, Schulte thought it was a joke. I mean, the phrase that comes to my mind first is that he sees around corners. ! Wooten subsequently filed for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Declaring Actual Innocence as a Matter of Law. It is all bad news for Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania as their aggregate scores are in the highest quartiles . Texas Commission on Judicial Selection Final Report, 2020. 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. Nearly a year later, while a fourth grand jury was investigating Wooten, Schulte, her lawyer, was finally able to arrange a meeting with Milner to try to find out what was going on. You have to understand what novices we were; of course, most of us are. (LogOut/ Those ads require front money in order to be run, and those ads take time to prepare and line up for broadcast. Word of her intentions got around, and, in December 2007, she started receiving calls from Steve Spencer, a marketing-and-lobbying one-man band based in Austin who was known for wearing flashy clothes and driving nice rental cars. Sandoval lost his bench by a larger margin than he initially won it. Of the 80 intermediate appellate justices, 2835 percentare new. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison probated and 30 days in jail. counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com . It had numerous replies. From 2015 to 2020, the Texas Rangers completed more than 560 public corruption case investigations, but only 67 of those cases have been prosecuted, according to DPS data analyzed by the. 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. The ultra-right conservatives here will hate you, they told her. Neither was interested. A recent poll on a parental rights website had identified some of the worst judges in the country. 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. Milner wasnt the only one talking that way. Harry White currently has a law practice in Fort Worth. Dad used to say if you dig a dry hole, that gives you more information of where to drill next time. Montgomery County Texas Watchdog. John Roach Sr. Don't try to fix it, that's how they like it. Over the following few months, Spencer would investigate options, discuss his findings with Stacy, and then bill her. So I took a flight a day early and came back, because I have children and a family. 07-01-2019, 03:09 AM augiedogie : Location: Northern Wisconsin . Of course, those are some of the most populated states in the . Smith County has a long been association with police corruption and misconduct with one local blogger calling it The Corruption . Odessa's violent crime rate of 806 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants is the highest in Texas by a fairly wide margin; Lubbock, the #2 city on the list, drops down to 658 per 100,000. It generally requires a video, or a written letter or text, or a wiretapped phone conversation. As for White and Abbott, he believed, they were involved from the very start. The Civil Rights Division may also be contacted via telephone at 512-463-2642 or 888-452-4778 (in Texas only). They talked over the next few days, and Stacy agreed to pay him $150 per hour up to $250,000 for his services. It all sounds pretty straightforward, but there are three big problems: one of perception, if not reality; one of blind, partisan loyalty; and one of colossal power wielded by one individual. At one point, according to a Collin County Bar Association judicial poll, it was 12 percent, the lowest in the history of the survey. Kathy Wise has been the executive editor of. Well, crapShawshank Redemption, Wooten thought. Dallas most important news stories of the week, delivered to your inbox each Sunday. Dallas, Texas 75201. He encourages cops, prosecutors to subvert the will of the people and indict her for something that isnt a crime. But in the end, I will discover that no matter how hard people try to distort it, the truth tends to be clear at its core. He asked if she planned to continue running Prometas drug treatment protocol for felony offenders, a program Sandoval had piloted. But, as the pragmatic daughter of a career Air Force officer puts it, I am really not a kill yourself kind of gal. So she started looking for ways to make something out of the situation. She said, Do you want to be right or do you want to be free? Wooten knew that if she were sentenced to more than 10 years, she would not be entitled to an appeal bond; she would go straight to prison without seeing her kids. During his tenure, Rick Perry appointed 112, 80 of which were district court judges. Ben Smith, a former ADA from Roachs office, currently sits on the 380th. 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. Then he killed her dog, put it in her bed, and told her he was going to kill her. After serving in the Air Force, Spencer went into the healthcare field, managing a region for a home health company. Suzanne Wooten did the impossible and became the first candidate to defeat a sitting judge in Collin County. And then they stayed as long as they wanted, or at least until they turned 75 and aged out by law. Even if she were sentenced to prison time, White wasnt sure how long she could stay on the bench during the course of an appeal. On March 4, the day of the primary, she watched the returns from her office with friends and family. She wasnt allowed to leave Collin or its touching counties without a travel permit, which had to be arranged well in advance, so when her mother-in-law was dying in the hospital, she couldnt be with her in College Station, and when her mother had a heart attack, she couldnt care for her in Austin. He and his wife are divorced but, he says, amicably so. With respect to legal corruption, Kentucky is the most corrupt state followed by Illinois and Nevada while Massachusetts is the least corrupt state followed Michigan, Oregon, and Vermont. By law, each county in the state must be served by at least one, which, for small rural counties, can be shared. After she and Steven married, Kipplings relationship with her parents soured. He says his checks bounced as a result of bad checks from clients, and he pled no contest to the insurance fraud claim because he couldnt afford to fight it. 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. Terms run for four years, and there are no term limits. The 43-year-old Collin County District Court judge was used to observing the courtroom from the opposite vantage point. But Milner figured he could cut the police department out of the equation on high-profile cases, doing his own investigations within the confines of the grand jury so no one would know what they were up to. Mr. They started making trips to the state capitol, trying to learn the ins and outs of parental rights legislation. 402n District Judge Brad McCampbell-A man who got his job only because the people of Wood County were fed up with the CORRUPTION of his predecessor former District Judge Jeff Fletcher, so they gave him a chance by electing him to replace Fletcher and he has done nothing but slap those citizens in the face at every chance he gets by doing whatever immoral deed Brandon Baade tells him to do. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevio talks to reporters Oct. 31, 2011, at the Hidalgo County sheriff's office in Edinburg, Texas. Change). Dave had been involved in an ongoing contentious custody dispute with his ex-wife, Jennifer, in Sandovals court. It has been said that Montgomery County, Texas is the most corrupt county in the state. 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. The Special Crimes Unit has been disbanded. My experience is completely different from Wootens. Corruption in a Small Texas Town Investigation Dismantles Family-Run Criminal Operation Public corruption arrests and convictions in major metropolitan areas usually garner a great deal of. Im like, Bribery? McKinney attorney Deric Walpole says that after accusing the DAs office of prosecutorial misconduct in a case on a Friday, he received a grand jury summons the following Monday. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in 2011, and the jury just wanted to go home. Smith County is located in the state of Texas. The court then went one step further. In fact, he asked us to hire a lobbyist, but therewe do have a lobbyist. She says someone in the purchasing department told her he tried to use up the wardrobe budget so she couldnt order a robe, and he packed her first months docket with more than 100 jury trials. He didnt understand that he couldnt just indict people to get them to do what he wanted them to do.. 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. And then not only that, prosecute two, three other people? (Stacy and Dave kept their finances separate after marriage.) The money, I believe, had to have been paid to the media prior to the reports that were filed reflecting no such payments.. 21. 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. If there was, every judge in the state of Texas could be indicted as well. A jury was picked on . Two widely publicized cases in 2013 involved a former Hidalgo County sheriff and his son, a former police officer. Greg Willis has been the Collin County District Attorney since January 1, 2011. Yet Sandoval had agreed to let Hythiam Inc., the L.A.-based biotech firm behind the drug (which was founded by a former junk bond salesman for Michael Milken), use his courtroom for clinical research trials. Wooten had been a trial attorney for nearly a decade when, in 2003, she decided to challenge the 59-year-old jurist for his seat on the 380th District Court. Assistant Attorney General | 2003 2015, Peter Schulte She needed to meet her opponent in his own primary, in March. For 162 years, district court judges had gotten their benches either by gubernatorial appointment when a court opened up due to retirement or death, or by election (often uncontested) when a new court was created. With his Gregory Peck eyeglass frames and awkwardly oversize pinstripe suit, White resembled Atticus Finch if Atticus Finch were in the Federalist Society. Instead, the evidence mainly focused on the timing of payments made by the Carys to Spencer and the timing of bills sent by Spencer to Wooten. They werent stupid. Enjoy!!! He had been wanting to move out there for 20 years, and when the pandemic hit, he finally did. These six checks would later constitute the six bribery counts in Dave, Stacy, and Wootens criminal court cases. Corruption Index Score: 11.44 And for the place where people prefer a slower-paced lifestyle, This Is the Laziest State in America. Per 100,000 residents in the state of Texas, there were 438 violent crimes and 2,562 property crimes according to World Population Review. One obnoxious guy in the second row said loudly, So did you do it? And then she comes back in with an actual innocence writ. But if that were true, I couldnt understand why Wooten and Stacy still didnt have a bad word to say about Spencer. Direct evidence proving that a payment to a judge is a bribe and not a campaign contribution is, understandably, difficult to establish. How do you end up with a scenario where it takes Dave Cary to free everyone else? Harry White, Greg Willis, and Charles Sandoval did not respond to requests for comment. There is no dispute that Wooten, for her part, paid every bill she received from Spencer. I couldnt tell you. I sat there and I thought, OK, you have to have intent when you steal. But before doing so, Stacy wanted to make sure they had somewhere to park the proceeds so they wouldnt have to pay taxes on the substantial capital gains. The FBI in San Antonio also has seen a sharp increase in . It was all about power and preserving the status quo. If the Texas AG was on board, the prosecution could continue regardless of who Collin Countys top prosecutor was. Corruption Index Score: 45.61. As for Sandoval, he was running against Judge Betty Caton for the newly created 380th seat. She gets convicted. Both Dave and Stacy were exonerated on all counts. His eponymously punny company, Spen-Off Strategies, touted itself as offering comprehensive and tailored strategies for operations, marketing, finance, technology, government relations, regulatory compliance and much more, with a global network of experts as support. How dare she, prosecutors were heard saying. With only two months to win the primary, she started attending every meeting she couldJunior League, Rotary Club, political party, chamber of commerce. The losing judge said there was no way Wooten could have won without cheating, and the DA needed to find the crime. Henderson. Here is the cast of characters that you will be reading the most about: First Assistant District Attorney Brandon Baade-A man whose physical unattractiveness is only surpassed by his lack of intelligence and moral bankruptcy, but has somehow tricked the people in the courthouse that he is brilliant and that they have to heed every bit of horrible advice that he gives, even though it took him 3 years to pass the bar exam after graduating law school from the LESS THAN PRESTIGIOUS Regent University Law School. On the appellate and district courts alone, the Texas Judiciary in the last election lost seven centuries of judicial experience at a single stroke.. As I said, Im a lawyer. And I was told that their plan was to have me arrested at the airport with the media present. But it was more than any of them ever intended her to have. Blow the whi Milner told Schulte that Wooten had one week to resign. Sandoval won 9,884 to 9,420. Her lawyers reassured her there was no rational basis for a conviction. There would be no opponent in November. They just chose not to accept it. Because this isnt a crime under Texas law. She never had less than $36,000 cash in a bank account. Texas Crime Statistics. Since the first district court was established in Collin County in 1846, no one had challenged an incumbent judge, whether in a primary or general election. In practice this has not held true for politicians, especially in Texas. So when he offered his services as a turnkey media manager for her campaign, even though hed never managed a judicial campaign before, she agreed. The Empire State has the dubious distinction of being ranked the most corrupt state in the U.S., when looking at total number of public officials convicted of federal corruption charges from. Corrupt Texas Governor Greg Abbott is the poster child for corrupt Republicans' sellout to the fossil fuel industry. In addition to Collin County, the complaint named Assistant District Attorney Christopher Milner and his boss, District Attorney John Roach Sr., and Assistant Attorney General Harry White and his boss, Attorney General Greg Abbott. She paid the campaign bills as she received them from Spencer, and then she used her line of credit to pay off the outstanding balance at the end. But election fraud is now a national rallying cry. Two days after his wedding anniversary, he came home. She didnt do anything wrong, Palmer says. Next: A famously combative governor presides over one of the most corrupt states in the Union. 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. Stacy says she hasnt seen them since. I dont think this set of facts has ever happened, he says. I thought thats what we were there for., The district attorney at the time was John Roach Sr., a white-haired Air Force veteran who preferred to be addressed as Judge Roach in recognition of his previous two decades on the bench, having taken the opposite approach to the usual legal career progression. So I had to scramble, do some FedExing, get some paperworkI had copies of everything, Wooten says. When the judge read the verdict out loud, Wootens husband collapsed and had to be carried out of the courtroom. But they let the others off the hook, finding their involvement in investigative functions was more limited.