Dave and Stacy didnt do anything wrong. This advocacy was his passion, something he did free of charge for his own personal ends. It involves parental rights. . Even though filing paperwork to run for judge isnt illegal, and supporting a candidate who shares your political and social ideals in the hope that the person will be elected and rule in your favor isnt illegal, and there was no allegation of an explicit agreementin fact, there was absolutely no evidence of money ever making its way from the Carys to Wootenthe case was allowed to proceed. 66-year-old Eric Clifford, who had deep roots in political office holding in Lamar and Red River counties before being elected to his judgeship, violated virtually every rule of judicial conduct, a 400-page complaint included: Threatening a police officer whose relatives were reportedly harassing a local court reporter; If there was, every judge in the state of Texas could be indicted as well. 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. This was particularly cynical given the fact that Ms. Wooten was active in the Democratic party two years prior to this race. Since Wooten, judicial races in the county are occasionally contested, and there are a lot more women on the bench. 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. So she decided to sit out the race and spend the next four years getting ready. Spencer, who had heard from the chairman of the Collin County Democratic Party that Wooten was running, knew his first order of business was to talk her into switching teams. As far as I know, everybody had Wootens back. He wanted them all held accountable. 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. 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. So she climbed out a window and fled. In 07, we had sold our oil company, kept some royalty, and everybody was flush, she says. The law also mandates public disclosure of contributors and the amounts contributed. With voter fraud, drug smuggling and bribery a big part of border culture, it's proving to be a difficult task. Whatever was going on, her bank didnt want to be involved. Thats the type of man he was. Prior to Daves trial, in 2010, a new judgewho had been assigned to his custody case after Wooten recused herselfdetermined that the sanctions Sandoval had awarded Jennifer were improper. The 43-year-old Collin County District Court judge was used to observing the courtroom from the opposite vantage point. They all say the city sucks, but I for one would still pick it over most of West Texas/ panhandle. Im like, Bribery? Yet the indictment alleged that payments made by Stacy to Spencer, totalling $150,000 between January and March 2008, were intended to induce Wooten to run for Sandovals seat, beat him, preside over the 380th, and issue unspecified favorable rulings., When I read it, I laughed, Schulte says. These other folks go and they appeal. Sometimes Im the guy, he says. It was all about power and preserving the status quo. Her law license was suspended, so she worked as a paralegal and started building a mediation and trial consulting business. Spencer pled guilty. When I ask him what he thinks makes him good at his job, he points up to the open hotel atrium above us. After serving in the Air Force, Spencer went into the healthcare field, managing a region for a home health company. Later, at the time of his indictment in the Wooten matter, he would be an officer with TDi, a tech company in Plano. The appellate judges agreed that Milner was performing investigative functions and therefore was not entitled to prosecutorial immunity. There would be no opponent in November. 07-01-2019, 03:09 AM augiedogie : Location: Northern Wisconsin . The Civil Rights Division may also be contacted via telephone at 512-463-2642 or 888-452-4778 (in Texas only). Shell just let anybody off.. With the writing on the wall, Palmer settled the case with Collin Countys insurance company for $600,000 in January 2022. She lived under a bridge for days before finally hitchhiking to Louisiana. Schulte now lives with his partner, Brett, in West Arvada, Colorado, between Boulder and Denver. He thought the consultant might be able to help develop a government sales pipeline for his companys tech products. He knew unseating a Democratic judge in Texas wouldnt get attention; he needed to challenge a Republican. Just the other day, Stacy found a tissue-thin piece of paper with a note from him in faint prison pencil. I can help people with their divorces. That flicker of a plan was enough to get her out of the tub. Wooten now has a busy mediation and trial consulting practice in McKinney called North Texas Litigation Solutions. Wooten and Jill Willis, who were friends, were also outsiders: they were rare examples of Collin County jurists who had not taken the bench via the DAs office. Stacy appealed her conviction first. She didnt even know he was suffering from thrombosis until she discovered theyd moved him to the medical unit in Galveston. The Special Crimes Unit has been disbanded. If youre doing something to save your own life, you dont have the intent to steal. We already know. Between that and Stacys sentence, he figured a fair shake wasnt forthcoming. On March 4, the day of the primary, she watched the returns from her office with friends and family. Henderson. First, as Schulte noted, it is entirely legal for a law firm to write a check for $30,000 to a sitting judge at a cocktail fundraiser for his or her reelection campaign on Friday night and then have one or more of its lawyers appear before said judge for a hearing on Monday morning. During the break, White approached Shook and offered 10 years probation if Wooten would waive her right to appeal. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). 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. In fact, he asked us to hire a lobbyist, but therewe do have a lobbyist. 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. And that brings us to the crime. He would later testify that he offered the plea because his sole goal was to get Wooten off the bench and keep her from running again. I was at a judicial conference in San Francisco when they indicted me, Wooten says. Write to [emailprotected]. 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. The hard part, she thought, was over. Except, it turned out, for Judge Kerry Russell, the visiting judge from Tyler assigned to the case. I will lose myself in the crazy, corrupt, centuries-old history of the Collin County court system. But if that were true, I couldnt understand why Wooten and Stacy still didnt have a bad word to say about Spencer. Based on Milners use of the grand jury as a manipulative investigative tooland Roachs knowledge of itPalmer felt he had enough to go after the pair. The filing may have been careless, but it wasnt a crime. A Dallas federal jury will soon decide the matter - at least in the case of local developer Ruel Hamilton, who is accused of bribing two former Dallas City Council members. They got married in December 2006, joining households with their four young children. Then someone anonymously placed a copy of an email from First Assistant DA Greg Davis to Roach in her mailbox. 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. There she met Dave Cary, a Northern Californian who had grown up in an old mining town and started his education in a one-room schoolhouse. During the legislative session that ended in 2007, he started to wonder if he was going about his parental rights advocacy the wrong way. He saw Roach and Milner as bullies, routinely threatening lawyers and judgesanyone, really, who got in their waywith criminal prosecution. Do I really want to be a judge? Wooten says. Im in this blur, Wooten says. 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. 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. And even if it had, it wasnt a crime. Willis, however, was never indicted. 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. And I was told that their plan was to have me arrested at the airport with the media present. We just pissed some people off.. But the prosecutors had the whole picture. That didnt pan out, but Spencer was able to help with other company matters that he found useful. So she went online. As a result, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General announced charges against the former. His family had a background in local politics, and he soon discovered that he had a natural affinity for it. 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. 1 in overall corruption convictions, followed by California, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. Before Wooten was sworn in on January 1, 2009, Charles Sandoval made his first attempts at sabotage. Those ads require front money in order to be run, and those ads take time to prepare and line up for broadcast. They have original jurisdiction over matters such as felony criminal cases, divorce and child custody disputes, and civil claims of $200 or more. Federal prosecutors convicted 206 defendants on public corruption charges in He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to concurrent sentences of 14 years in prison for each count. He still has an active consulting practice, although he has not worked on another judicial campaign. Steve Spencer was set for trial in December 2012. Lindsay Lohan used it. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Because this isnt a crime under Texas law. Dave also hired Spencer. Wooten had considered running as an independent, because she felt judicial races shouldnt be partisan and party affiliation shouldnt make a difference. Spencer, after all, was the fulcrum between Wooten and the Carys. Dad used to say if you dig a dry hole, that gives you more information of where to drill next time. Stacy Cary was convicted by a jury in June 2012. Known as Hang Them All Sandoval, he had an abysmal approval rating among members of the local bar. The Judicial Campaign Fairness Act places limits on judicial campaign contributions. I mean, its just mind blowing., Over the course of his career, he had numerous encounters with Milner and Roach in Collin County, and, even though he didnt know her, he had even donated a small amount to Wootens campaign. Stacy and her sister-in-law sent him the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. In an interview with the FBI, she stated that the grand jury was like a reunion. Governor Orders Major Election Investigation on Most Corrupt County in Texas. Or even his wife. She managed to raise $79,000 in campaign donations, leaving her with $33,000 in out-of-pocket expenses. Per capita, Louisiana is the most corrupt state, followed by Mississippi. 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. It was weird.. Instead of the usual assistant district attorney who presented cases to the grand jury, Assistant District Attorneys Greg Davis and Christopher Milner presented the cases against Wooten and Willis. John Cornyn and Greg Abbott were running unopposed for the Supreme Court of Texas. Then he approached one of Puhls former law partners. 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. Weird stuff kept happening. The border has been a hotbed of corrupt activity. Her lowest point came the night before the verdict. 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