Texas Tribune
Federal prosecutors asked to reopen Jared Woodfill fraud case
by Robert Downen, The Texas Tribune – 2024-02-07 15:10:48
SUMMARY: Amy Holsworth, a former client of Houston attorney and Texas House candidate Jared Woodfill, has requested a re-examination of a 2017 investigation where Woodfill was accused of misappropriating client funds. Holsworth alleges Harris County prosecutors, including District Attorney Kim Ogg, mishandled the case and suggests possible improper influence by Ogg and Rachel Hooper, a Houston attorney with connections to Ogg. This comes as Woodfill faces unrelated scrutiny over a sexual abuse scandal involving his ex-law partner. Despite detailed financial discrepancies outlined by a federal judge, no charges were filed. Holsworth's new complaint involves claims of intimidation and mishandling of the investigation.
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A former client of Houston attorney and Texas House candidate Jared Woodfill is asking state and federal investigators to give fresh scrutiny to a 2017 investigation into allegations that he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars from his firm's clients.
In a sworn affidavit sent this week to the Texas Rangers, the FBI's Houston office and U.S. attorneys in the Southern District, Amy Holsworth, the former client, alleges that Harris County prosecutors mishandled her case against Woodfill and unexpectedly closed it. She also suggests the outcome of the case may have been improperly influenced by District Attorney Kim Ogg and Rachel Hooper, a Houston attorney and counsel for the Texas GOP whose relationship with Ogg has been under scrutiny since January.
Holsworth said in the new complaint that she recently learned that Hooper was associated with Woodfill's legal team during the 2017 investigation into his firm — Woodfill appeared in a video with Hooper that was taken at the Harris County courthouse days after investigators raided his office. In October 2021 — a month before Holsworth says she was told the Woodfill case was closed — Hooper was reportedly hired as a contract employee for the district attorney's office.
Woodfill is a former chair of the Harris County Republican Party who has for years led anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns in Houston and Texas. He has accused his opponent, Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, of being a “Republican In Name Only” over her vote to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton — who has endorsed Woodfill's campaign. If Woodfill wins his House race, he has said that he will also run for speaker of the Texas House.
Holsworth's complaint comes as Woodfill continues to face unrelated scrutiny for his role in a sexual abuse scandal involving his former law partner Paul Pressler, a Southern Baptist leader and former Texas judge who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple men.
Ogg, a Democrat, currently faces a well-funded primary challenge from a former assistant attorney, Sean Teare, as well as criticism from the local Democratic Party and others for allegedly abusing her office to pursue political vendettas.
Ogg has downplayed the accusations as “political drama.” Her office did not respond to a request for comment Holsworth's claims, nor did Hooper or her husband, who was also named in Holsworth's complaint.
In an interview, Woodfill's attorney, Terry Yates, called Holsworth's new complaint politically motivated and unlikely to be taken seriously because of the age of her claims. He also disputed claims about Hooper's involvement with Woodfill's defense, saying that he was the lead attorney in the case and didn't remember her playing a significant role.
The complaint centers around a fraud and money laundering investigation into Woodfill's firm that began in 2017, after a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge found more than $140,000 in unaccounted funds or overpayments to Woodfill's firm. In a massive findings of fact document that was filed in federal court at the time, the judge detailed more than a year of alleged financial “discrepancies,” overcharged attorneys fees and other instances of financial mismanagement by Woodfill's firm.
At one point, the judge found, there was only $650 left of the $225,000 that was placed in a trust to fund legal services for Holsworth and her then-husband. Her husband declared bankruptcy, and Holsworth eventually filed a criminal complaint against Woodfill with the district attorney.
Woodfill's firm disputed the judge's findings.
In a separate complaint filed with the Houston Police Department around the same time, Woodfill was accused of misusing at least $300,000 from a trust account in a different divorce case.
In November 2018, Woodfill's law offices were raided by the District Attorney's Office, which seized more than 127 boxes of files and six computers, according to a search affidavit from the time. The warrant also cited a second complaint from a woman who hired Woodfill's firm in 2013, as well as an employee for Woodfill's firm who said that Woodfill often moved money between client accounts and his own bank accounts.
Woodfill was also publicly reprimanded and fined by the Texas Bar for violations related to the complaint.
In her new complaint, Holsworth wrote that she had expected charges to be filed in the case, given the detailed allegations that were already outlined by a federal judge.
At one point, Holsworth, who was previously active in Harris County conservative politics, alleges that her friends and employer were contacted by a private investigator claiming to work for Woodfill. She wrote that Hooper's husband Don, who runs a small conservative blog, spread “malicious gossip” about her and harassed her in online Republican groups.
Holsworth said that she spent years contacting officials in the District Attorney's Office to check on her case. She wrote that she also ran into Ogg at a 2020 political event, and introduced herself as one of the victims in the Woodfill investigation.
“Ogg said that she knew exactly who I was and that she would reach out soon,” Holsworth wrote. “I never heard from DA Ogg.”
In the year after, Holsworth wrote that she and another alleged victim of Woodfill's continued to contact investigators, who told them that they were waiting for Ogg's approval to bring the case to a grand jury.
In November 2021, Holsworth said she was unexpectedly told that the case had been closed.
“This came as a complete surprise to me,” she wrote. “I was always given the impression that they believed they had a very strong case against Woodfill.”
Then, last month, Holsworth wrote that she began to further scrutinize her case after a story in the Houston Landing that raised ethical concerns about Ogg's decision to tap Hooper to investigate Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's office, given the public acrimony between Ogg and Hidalgo, Hooper's ties to the state GOP and blog posts in which Hooper's husband called Hidalgo a “Marxist.” Hooper, the Landing wrote, was hired to work on a “special project” that centered on an allegedly improper $11 million COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract. In 2022, two of Hidalgo's aides were charged with misusing official information and tampering with a government document.
Ogg's office defended the hiring of Hooper, telling the Landing that they “needed the manpower” because roughly half of the office's public corruption prosecutors were on leave. Hooper's role in the Hidalgo inquiry was to “draft and review legal documents,” Ogg's office said, adding that they have a longstanding agreement with Hooper's firm, BakerHostetler, “that allows our office to hire them as outside counsel, as does the Harris County Attorney's Office.”
According to the Landing, Hooper began investigating Hidalgo's office in October 2021 — a month before Holsworth said she was told the case against Woodfill had been closed.
Holsworth says she has since learned that, in addition to her alleged involvement with Woodfill's legal defense, Hooper also performed legal work in the divorce and bankruptcy proceedings that prompted her complaint about Woodfill.
“All of the information that I learned in January 2024 only confirmed in my mind that the Hoopers and others were attempting to intimidate me due to my cooperation in the Woodfill criminal investigation and that the investigation was dropped by the DA's Office for reasons contrary to the interest of justice,” Holsworth wrote.
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Texas Tribune
Trump says Paxton would make good U.S. attorney general
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 08:47:03
SUMMARY: Former President Donald Trump is considering Ken Paxton, Texas' Attorney General, for the role of U.S. Attorney General if re-elected. Trump commended Paxton's abilities and loyalty, highlighting his legal challenge to the 2020 election results and his support during Trump's impeachment defense. Paxton was impeached for bribery allegations but acquitted, with Trump claiming credit for the outcome. Recent polls show Trump leading President Biden in key states. Paxton's legal issues have diminished following the dropping of securities fraud charges, although federal investigations continue. If nominated, Paxton's Senate confirmation faces partisan challenges and opposition from notable Republicans.
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Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas' chief legal officer.
“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He's very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he's a very talented guy.”
Paxton has long been a close ally of Trump, famously waging an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump's 2020 election loss in four battleground states. He also spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.
Paxton's loyalty was rewarded with an endorsement from Trump in the 2022 primary, which helped the attorney general fend off three prominent GOP challengers.
Trump also came to Paxton's defense when he was impeached last year for allegedly accepting bribes and abusing the power of his office to help a wealthy friend and campaign donor. After Paxton was acquitted in the Texas Senate, Trump claimed credit, citing his “intervention” on his Truth Social platform, where he denounced the proceedings and threatened political retribution for Republicans who backed the impeachment.
“I fought for him when he had the difficulty and we won,” he told KDFW. “He had some people really after him, and I thought it was really unfair.”
Trump's latest comments, delivered at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas, come after a series of recent polls have shown the presumptive Republican nominee leading President Joe Biden in a handful of key battleground states.
Paxton has also seen his political prospects rise in recent months, after prosecutors agreed in March to drop three felony counts of securities fraud that had loomed over Paxton for nearly his entire tenure as attorney general. The resolution of the nine-year-old case, along with Paxton's impeachment acquittal in the Senate last fall, has brought him closer than ever to a political career devoid of legal drama.
Still, Paxton's critics say he is far from vindicated. He remains under federal investigation for the same allegations that formed the basis of his impeachment, and he continues to face a whistleblower lawsuit from former deputies who said they were illegally fired for reporting Paxton to law enforcement. A separate lawsuit from the state bar seeks to penalize Paxton for his 2020 election challenge, which relied on discredited claims of election fraud.
If nominated, Paxton would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The chamber is narrowly divided along party lines, with Democrats holding a 51-49 majority. One of the most prominent Republican members, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, has been an outspoken critic of Paxton, while Paxton has openly entertained the idea of challenging Cornyn in 2026.
Paxton is not the only Texan Trump has floated for a high-profile spot in his potential administration. In February, he said Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates. Abbott has since downplayed his interest in the job.
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Texas Tribune
These Texans aren’t taking buyouts despite repeated floods
by By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Recent floods in Harris County, Texas, have devastated homes along the San Jacinto River. Tom Madigan, who owns multiple properties, quickly started repairs without knowing the Harris County Flood Control District aims to buy out such flood-prone properties. The region has a longstanding buyout program to remove homes from high-risk flood areas, with about 800 out of 2,400 targeted properties purchased. However, buyouts are voluntary and often insufficient for low-income residents. Despite the program, many choose to stay due to affordability and community ties, while others like Madigan remain skeptical of receiving a fair offer.
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HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn't think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to help, and they got to work stripping the walls, pulling up flooring and throwing out water-logged furniture.
What Madigan didn't know: The Harris County Flood Control District wants to buy his properties as part of an effort to get people out of dangerously flood-prone areas.
Back-to-back storms drenched southeast Texas in late April and early May, causing flash flooding and pushing rivers out of their banks and into low-lying neighborhoods. Officials across the region urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Like Madigan's, some places that were inundated along the San Jacinto in Harris County have flooded repeatedly. And for nearly 30 years, the flood control district has been trying to clear out homes around the river by paying property owners to move, then returning the lots to nature.
The recent floods show why buyout programs can be important. These spots typically flood first and worse. Gov. Greg Abbott reported that hundreds of rescues took place in the state while the floods destroyed homes. A man drowned and a child was swept away into the floods. One Harris County resident described climbing on top of his motor home as the water rose before first responders rescued him.
But the disaster and its aftermath also illustrate why buyouts are complicated to carry out even in Harris County, home to Houston, which has one of the most robust buyout programs in the country. The flood control district has identified roughly 2,400 properties as current buyout candidates around the San Jacinto; the district and county have bought about 800 of them.
Nearly all of the district's buyouts are voluntary. If an owner doesn't want to sell, the district can't force them out.
Buyouts make sense for some people who can't be protected from floods, said Alessandra Jerolleman, director of research for the Center on Environment, Land and Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
But buyouts might not provide lower-income people enough money to get somewhere safer, she said, and they could lose important support like child care from nearby family or neighbors.
“It's not as though it's a guarantee of reducing risks to that family,” Jerolleman said.
People who live near the river and who have endured repeated floods explained that they've stayed because it's affordable and, most of the time, peaceful. Where else would they be able to buy anything like it? Some said they didn't think the government would offer them what they consider a fair price to sell their land. Some didn't know the buyout program existed.
Madigan started buying homes more than 15 years ago in the unincorporated River Terrace neighborhood because they were cheap. On Tuesday, the Houston firefighter drank a Heineken and grilled hamburgers for his work crew outside his most damaged house, which he rents to his brother. Sodden rugs baked in the sun on the driveway.
Madigan said he might have taken a buyout if it was a reasonable offer — but he doubted it would be. He said he needed to get the properties ready again for his renters. “I can't wait,” he said.
Two blocks away, water had swept through a yellow house Madigan rents to a family with a teenage son. One of the workers fixing the property, 21-year-old Omar Reyna, watched the family throw out pretty much everything they had. Piecing together new laminate flooring with his dad, Reyna kept thinking about a trash bag of Teddy bears and stuffed toys he tossed out for them.
He wondered if the parents had been saving the toys for another kid they might have in the future.
“The faster we get it done, the faster they can come back in here,” Reyna said.
Some people choose to live with the risk of flooding
The San Jacinto is the largest river in the state's most populous county. For years before Harris County's first floodplain maps were drawn up in the mid-1980s, people built homes near its banks. Even today, people can still build in the vast floodplain if the houses are high enough and have enough stormwater detention.
The flood control district tries to buy out homes in pockets of the floodplain that are deepest, said James Wade, manager for the district's property acquisition department. Those are places where engineers can't easily fix flooding problems.
Buyouts are meant to get people out of flood zones before their property floods again, not to help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The process is slow: In some cases, it can take 18 months or longer to approve a buyout application, Wade said. The district pays owners the market value or pre-flood value for their house, determined by a third-party appraiser, plus moving expenses and a supplement to help them get into a house out of the floodplain, Wade said.
“It's a very equitable, fair program,” Wade said — but still some people don't want to leave.
Those who stay learn to adapt. They build homes on stilts. They monitor the river level and watch for releases of water from the Lake Conroe dam upstream. Some know intimately the routine of rebuilding: gut the house, clean it, put it back together.
The floor of 49-year-old Sean Vincent's house in the Forest Cove neighborhood in northeast Houston is 15 feet above the ground. Three feet of water flooded it when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. This month, the floods reached five feet high on Vincent's property. He cleaned out his waterlogged ground-level shed with help from church members. On Tuesday, he was building new shelves for it.
But most of the time Vincent, who works in railroad traffic control, said he enjoys the space surrounded by tall trees with room for his three kids.
“It's just really not a major part of our life,” Vincent said of the flooding. “Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it's now happened to us twice in seven years … It's sort of a trade-off for us. And it is lovely out here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
Then there are those who stay because they don't see anywhere else to go.
Jack St. John, 67, a retired long-haul truck driver, moved to Northshore 43 years ago and has had to clean up after two floods. He worries any time flooding threatens, but the neighborhood's advantages keep him there: He has no water bill because he has a well. His taxes are reasonable. The neighborhood has a fish fry in the spring and a barbecue in the fall.
“You know, when you leave, where are you going to go?” he said. “What's it going to cost to buy into another place?”
Farther northeast, in the Idle Wild and Idle Glen neighborhoods, the floods forced some residents to sleep under tarps. On one largely forested street, boats were turned sideways or flipped upside down. A small building was lodged in the trees. A car was in the ditch.
For several years, Elvia Bethea, 68, has driven from her home in Humble to check on people and pets here, and pick up stray animals. On Tuesday, she and other volunteers gave John Gray, 50, bamboo yard torches to fight the many mosquitoes, plus two trays of chocolate-covered strawberries.
Gray said he couldn't afford to fix up his destroyed house. He earns a living printing labor law posters for businesses. His printers at home were destroyed.
Gray said he had never heard of the buyout program but would consider taking one.
“Who do I call?” Gray asked. “I don't have a clue.”
From the back of a white SUV, Bethea handed some hot dogs to Jose Tabores, 68, who lives on Gray's land in a trailer now filled with mud.
“I'm coming for dinner, remember!” Bethea teased him.
Nearby, 51-year-old Veronika Scheid had been sleeping in a wet tent. The flood washed the shipping crate she lived in down the road and into the trees — along with her and her neighbors' belongings.
At a low point, when Scheid was crying over all she lost, she found a pink-and-white beaded necklace with stitching in the shape of a “V,” like her name. At the end was a charm shaped like a house.
She was grateful the person who owned the land where she stayed hadn't taken a buyout. Otherwise she would have nowhere to go.
“At least we have this,” Scheid said.
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The post These Texans aren't taking buyouts despite repeated floods appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
Trump, Abbott speak at Dallas NRA convention
by By Annie Xia, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-18 19:24:41
SUMMARY:
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DALLAS— At the National Rifle Association's annual convention on Saturday, Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged the thousands gathered to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election as a way to ensure their Second Amendment rights.
“The NRA has stood with me from the very beginning, and with your vote, I will stand strong for your rights and liberties,” Trump said. “I heard it a few weeks ago that if gun owners voted, we would swamp them at levels that nobody's ever seen before. I think you're a rebellious bunch, but let's be rebellious and vote this time.”
Trump and Abbott spoke to a room packed with NRA members, some of which sported supportive attire from the standard-fare red caps to a dress covered with photos of the former president.
During the convention, the NRA released its endorsement for the 45th president, and the Trump political campaign announced the launch for the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition.
Abbott touted his track record on gun rights by pointing to Texas laws passed last year, such as House Bill 3137 which prohibits local governments from requiring firearm owners to buy liability insurance. To energetic applause, he said the law ensured people would not be forced to pay to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Abbott also described the state's successful crackdown on the recent pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, in which protesters are demanding the schools divest from from companies tied to Israel or weapons manufacturing amid the Israel-Hamas War.
“When they tried to pull that stunt in Texas, our Department of Public Safety cleared the area, arrested the protesters and put them in jail,” Abbott said. “Unlike some of these radical leftist universities like Columbia, UCLA and far too many others, in Texas we don't tolerate paid protesters who tried to hijack our college campuses.”
Almost to the day, the NRA convention takes place two years after the Uvalde school shooting, where an 18-year-old gunned down an elementary school with a legally purchased assault rifle. The shooter killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers with an AR-15 style rifle.
During the 2023 legislative session, Uvalde families unsuccessfully pressed Texas policymakers to pass a raise-the-age law, which would have upped the minimum age for buying semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21.
“Donald Trump and Texas Republicans made the gun violence epidemic worse, especially in our state, where we have seen nine mass shootings just in the last 15 years,” said a statement by Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party Chair, on Friday. “Even after Uvalde parents pleaded with Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz for commonsense gun safety laws, they decided, like Trump “ that the NRA and gun lobby was more important.”
Instead the legislature approved a school safety bill that established preventative measures toward school shootings. The law included a mandate that every school must hire an armed security officer and the creation of a department within the Texas Education Agency that can compel districts to adhere to active-shooter protocols.
During his speech, Trump endorsed four Republican candidates who are fighting in late May runoffs to be their party's nominee: Alan Schoolcraft, David Covey, Helen Kerwin and Brett Hagenbuch. Each of them has already received endorsements by Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton or both. Schoolcraft, Covey and Kerwin are running against Republican incumbents in the Texas House who impeded Abbott's signature school voucher bill or voted for Paxton's impeachment based on accusations of corruption.
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