Starting in July 2008, Sandoval sent a flurry of correspondence on judicial letterhead to Milner in the DAs office, alleging that something was fishy with Wootens expenditures for radio advertising. For a moment, she thought maybe it would be better for them if she were dead. 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. It was a great struggle. In addition to arguing that the Collin County District Attorneys Office was plagued by a pattern of abuse of power and malicious prosecution for political gain, Palmer and Cox also argued that Milner and Roach had grossly abused the grand jury process as part of their prosecutor-led investigation. Neither was interested. Montgomery County Texas Watchdog. Dallas County has 32; Collin County has 13. So I took a flight a day early and came back, because I have children and a family. It was weird.. So she climbed out a window and fled. The Judicial Campaign Fairness Act places limits on judicial campaign contributions. By law, each county in the state must be served by at least one, which, for small rural counties, can be shared. Texas Attorney General | 2002 2015. 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. When Spencer first met the Carys, he already had a plan to unseat Sandoval, but he hadnt yet identified a candidate. I didnt choose this lifestyle. He never looked at that as a failure. His name was Steve Spencer. Everyone knew someone else, and they almost all had a tie to the Collin County Republican Party. And a member of Roachs staff now holds Wootens former bench in the 380th District Court. 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. He pled guilty and was sentenced to 100 days in jail and 10 years probation. Brings new meaning to the phrase Sunday Funday. To say she needed Stacys money to win simply isnt true. It isnt a crime to spend the money you earn. A fourth of trial judgesdistrict, county, and justices of the peaceare new. He asked if Stacy might be interested in hiring him to do some research and consulting on her behalf. One way Ive tried to just explain it to people who dont get itlawyers dont get it eitherits like I was charged with walking my dog to my mailbox to get the mail when they knew for a fact that not only did I not walk to the mailbox, but it would not have been a crime. With the writing on the wall, Palmer settled the case with Collin Countys insurance company for $600,000 in January 2022. They never give it back, Wooten says. I had started to think Spencer must be some sort of Keyser Sze, a con man hiding in plain sight. Enjoy!!!! He was a young lawyer when he met Wooten in the summer of 2008, only a few years out of law school. Lindsay Lohan used it. I was like, thats where I wanna go fishing.. Suzanne Wooten did the impossible and became the first candidate to defeat a sitting judge in Collin County. Then someone anonymously placed a copy of an email from First Assistant DA Greg Davis to Roach in her mailbox. You have to mean to steal. The reason I laughed was theres not a district judge in the world thats not going to quash this indictment.. After Wooten was elected, a hearing in the case was scheduled in her courtroom, but she recused herself as soon as she realized that several of the lawyers involved were from her old firm or had helped on her campaign. From the Rio Grande Valley to Val Verde County the integrity of public officials has been compromised on a massive scale. When Wooten reached out to him the following spring to see if hed be willing to represent her in a civil action, he didnt hesitate. He was focused specifically on limiting third-party rightsgrandparents, extended family members, and others he viewed as interfering with the rights of parents. 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. 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. 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. As a result, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General announced charges against the former. Wooten couldnt appeal. She lived under a bridge for days before finally hitchhiking to Louisiana. The AGs office missed it, too. 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. Wooten became alarmed. 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 . Sandoval and Roach have retired. They filed a report stating that the Collin County DAs office was misusing the grand jury to undertake politically motivated investigations. Suite 2100 It was money well spent. 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. Judge John Roach Sr. is rumored to have retired to New Mexico; his son, Judge John Roach Jr., currently sits on the 296th. Spencer and Wooten had achieved the impossible. He saw Roach and Milner as bullies, routinely threatening lawyers and judgesanyone, really, who got in their waywith criminal prosecution. It just takes one jilted man and a few loyal henchmen to put a woman back in her permitted place. I spent six months conducting interviews and reviewing hundreds of pages of records trying to understand what happened to Suzanne Wooten. In fact, he asked us to hire a lobbyist, but therewe do have a lobbyist. As for the military claim, Spencer says the allegation was never substantiated, and the military actually entered into a confidential settlement agreement with him over it. 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. 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. Of course, those are some of the most populated states in the . ), One day, Wooten received a call at the courthouse from a drug rep. Christopher Milner and John Roach Sr. could not be reached directly; their attorney, Bob Davis, did not respond to requests for comment on their behalf. Who bribed who what? Doesnt bribery involve you getting money or someone paying money or something? You get arrested, they take your TV, they take your cash. Dave Cary had already seen a series of judges do 180s in his child custody case. This story originally appeared in the October issue of D Magazine. And then there were the lawyers. With that in mind, Best Life set out to determine the most corrupt state in America. In April 2010, the FBI opened an investigation into potential corruption in the DAs office. Justice in Collin County was hard to come by if you werent part of the club. They talked over the next few days, and Stacy agreed to pay him $150 per hour up to $250,000 for his services. Texas . He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to concurrent sentences of 14 years in prison for each count. She didnt want even the appearance of impropriety. 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. After serving in the Air Force, Spencer went into the healthcare field, managing a region for a home health company. The appellate judges agreed that Milner was performing investigative functions and therefore was not entitled to prosecutorial immunity. On October 14, 2010, nearly two years after she had taken the bench, Wooten was indicted by the sixth grand jury to hear her case. 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. Enjoy!!! 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. We dug a lot of dry holes, Stacy says of the research. So she decided to sit out the race and spend the next four years getting ready. counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com . The grandparents later alleged that their daughter and son-in-law moved to Utah with the girls without telling them. In December 2008, a few weeks before Wooten was to take the bench, Milner reached out to Attorney General Greg Abbotts office. Stacy appealed her conviction first. 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. There would be no opponent in November. Weird stuff kept happening. One morning, she woke up and realized she was surrounded by elderly farmers. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. In practice this has not held true for politicians, especially in Texas. It would be disappointingwe might not have money to pay for another one for a whilebut thats how he talked to me about failure my whole life. Governor Orders Major Election Investigation on Most Corrupt County in Texas. Texas Crime Statistics. Later, at the time of his indictment in the Wooten matter, he would be an officer with TDi, a tech company in Plano. They all say the city sucks, but I for one would still pick it over most of West Texas/ panhandle. 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. John Roach Sr. was running uncontested for the 199th. Judge of the 429th | 2009 present, Greg Willis, (husband of Jill Willis) And Milner and White, their henchmen, have moved on to private practice. So my attention was drawn to Collin County, because its the reddest county in the reddest state, Spencer says. Former Chief of the Special Crimes Division of the CCDAO, Jill Willis, (wife of Greg Willis) The FBI is cracking down on rampant corruption in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Just the other day, Stacy found a tissue-thin piece of paper with a note from him in faint prison pencil. But since the State Commission on Judicial Conduct never removed her, she technically remained the elected judge on the 380th until the end of December 2012. Beginning in 2005, he started going to Austin to try to amend laws regarding parental rights that he felt were unconstitutional. Dave Cary went to trial in April 2013. You have to understand what novices we were; of course, most of us are. After analyzing almost 335 of the most populous cities, we came up with this list as the absolute worst 10 places in the state of Texas: The 10 Worst Places To Live In Texas For 2021 Hutchins Diboll Cleveland Progreso Alton Livingston Palmview Port Arthur Robstown Humble What? The Addison-based criminal defense attorney thrives on the challenge and plays to win. The allegation was that two years prior he had mistakenly filed a document that hadnt yet been notarized; when the clerk had caught the error, hed had the document notarized after the fact. Case in point: while Milner was convening multiple grand juries to investigate Wooten, he was also convening multiple grand juries to investigate Judge Greg Willis, who, at the time, was campaigning to be the next Collin County DA. She was facing not only the loss of her career but also the loss of her family. On that November day in 2011, nobody could have foreseen that Wooten, whose hands were effectively tied behind her back without the ability to appeal, would emerge a decade later, Houdini-like, with a complete exoneration and a $600,000 settlement against Collin County. Between 2015 and 2021, the Texas Rangers completed investigations into more than 560 public integrity and corruption complaints, including allegations of theft, bribery, abuse of office, sexual. 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. What followed is the unbelievable, epic tale of the craziest case in the history of jurisprudence. Before Wooten was sworn in on January 1, 2009, Charles Sandoval made his first attempts at sabotage. . I thought we had checks and balances. The price of oil was spiking, and the siblings thought it might be a good time to sell. If there was, every judge in the state of Texas could be indicted as well. 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. 1 in overall corruption convictions, followed by California, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. Its tempting to think that things have improved. How did you all fuck this up and continue to prosecute her? (Although you cant run after you turn 75.). He is an assistant city attorney manager for the city of Aurora. But when her first financial report was due in mid-January, the Secretary of States office told her they didnt have her listed as a candidate. But election fraud is now a national rallying cry. But the day he was sentenced, Jennifer applied to get the twins back. If youre doing something to save your own life, you dont have the intent to steal. Corruption, of course, exists in big cities across the country, too, and Richard Durbin, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said the dollar amounts involved in Texas cases. This one was a plea to prison officials to let his wife bring his wedding ring to prison and to let him wear it. texas state capitol austin texas. 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. Yet the witch hunt continued for years.. 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. I will lose myself in the crazy, corrupt, centuries-old history of the Collin County court system. Most try both criminal and civil cases, but in larger counties, such as Dallas, individual courts may specialize in civil, criminal, juvenile, or family law. 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. The court then went one step further. Spencer arrives for our meeting at the coffee shop in the Hilton Anatole dressed in a black zip-up polo, jeans, and gray loafers. Known as Hang Them All Sandoval, he had an abysmal approval rating among members of the local bar. Stacy says they fell in love on their first date, at Avanti in Dallas at Fountain Place. She didnt even know he was suffering from thrombosis until she discovered theyd moved him to the medical unit in Galveston. His next stop was the Collin County Democratic Party, which told him that Wooten was talking about running for Sandovals seat. Smith County has a long been association with police corruption and misconduct with one local blogger calling it The Corruption . Stacy Cary was convicted by a jury in June 2012. Milner wasnt the only one talking that way. Christopher Milner was practicing criminal defense law in Rockwall, but no one has heard from him for a while. During the break, White approached Shook and offered 10 years probation if Wooten would waive her right to appeal. The 43-year-old Collin County District Court judge was used to observing the courtroom from the opposite vantage point. Wooten subsequently filed for a Writ of Habeas Corpus Declaring Actual Innocence as a Matter of Law. 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 August 2014, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas affirmed the jurys finding of guilt 2 to 1. Wooten now has a busy mediation and trial consulting practice in McKinney called North Texas Litigation Solutions. And they were women. Suzanne Wooten One-third of all District Court judges in Texas have been appointed, not elected. ! The will of the people is [Wooten] wins. The $150,000 that Stacy paid Spencer from January 2008 to March 2008 was all deposited in Spencers joint checking account with his wife. But he was already working regularly with a local television station as a legal analyst. He said he had gotten a grand jury subpoena requesting records related to the vacation home she had purchased several years before her election. They wrote a letter to the presiding judge, stating the DAO [District Attorneys Office] has used its authority, and the grand jury system, to investigate marginal cases against individuals acting in both public and private capacities. 21. Her first cases are still fixed in her memory. Over the following few months, Spencer would investigate options, discuss his findings with Stacy, and then bill her. Since Wooten, judicial races in the county are occasionally contested, and there are a lot more women on the bench. 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. Then there was the older man whod stolen a bottle of $20 shampoo but was charged by prosecutors with felony theft because it was his third offense. Henderson. 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. Because this isnt a crime under Texas law. Otherwise, I would not have even been on the ballot. Everyone else is just collateral damage. Friends in the legal community told her she should wait. If he could unseat one who had taken a bad position on parental rights, he thought, maybe he could finally get some traction. It isnt a crimealthough its not smartto use money earned from one client to pay bills for another before they pay you back because you dont want to admit to anyone that youre broke. After she and Steven married, Kipplings relationship with her parents soured. Both Dave and Stacy were exonerated on all counts. There were also ads run on the most popular morning and evening shows. Then Huntsville. 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