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Judge denies dirty DA’s request for gag order

This morning Judge H.D. Black denied Robertson County District Attorney John Paschall’s request for a restraining order to keep me from talking about Marsha Gilbert and John Gilbert vs. John Paschall.

You may recall that Paschall is fighting tooth and nail to keep anyone from learning what he did with the estate of Marium Oscar, the last survivor of Calvert’s Jewish community. If you haven’t watched this news story from KAGS in Bryan about the lawsuit, take a look and you’ll see Paschall acting like… Paschall. [more…]

Judge Black explained some basic First Amendment principles this morning to Paschall and his attorney, Bryan F. “Rusty” Russ, Jr., which they apparently failed to comprehend.  Rusty got really combative with the judge, and at one point threatened to start a website about me and “the court” (i.e., the judge) if the judge did not restrain me from talking about Gilbert v. Paschall.

I had a three-word response to that threat, which I’ll share with you here: bring it on. Here is what I wrote back on October 7:

… I invite Paschall to tell his side of the story. If he wants to explain why his office has not tried a felony case in 21 months, I’ll be glad to post it here and on RedFacedDrunk.com. In fact, if Paschall wants to respond to anything I’ve written about him, e.g., the Marium Oscar case, I’ll be glad to post it here.

Rusty repeatedly called me a “liar” in court today, so I’ll repeat the challenge that I made this morning: tell me exactly what I am lying about. Rusty won’t have to start his own website, because I’ll post it right here. Here’s something else I wrote back on October 7:

None of [Paschall’s cronies] — not one — has denied that he refers to black people as “niggers” (and they can’t, because too many witnesses have already testified in Regina Kelly, et al. v. John Paschall, et al. about his use of that word).

None of his supporters have denied that he’s a drunk. None of his supporters have offered an explanation for what happened to the Marium Oscar estate. None of his supporters have denied that he is currently under indictment for a felony. None of his supporters have denied that he was arrested for public intoxication in 2005. None of his supporters have denied that he threatened Steve Stokely, a detective who was investigating Paschall’s brother-in-law for murder.

In court, I even taunted Paschall to file a defamation suit against me (he knows better, because truth is the ultimate defense to a defamation suit).

Here are a few more odds and ends:

* Paschall’s face was unusually red this morning, which leads me to the naming of RedFacedDrunk.com. Aside from the 2005 arrest for public intoxication, there’s plenty more evidence that Paschall has a severe alcohol problem.  In my observation, Paschall usually arrives at the courthouse in middle to late morning, and his face is usually red and his eyes are usually bloodshot. His ex-wife told me he used to drink a 12-pack every evening, and that would have been back in the 90s. About a month ago, one of my clients observed him sitting in a local drinking establishment with one of the constables.  (They were strategizing about how to round up votes in the Hispanic community).  My client walked in after Paschall and reported that Paschall drank at least seven beers before getting in his truck and driving home. (Incidentally, the constable had at least two beers before leaving in his patrol car, according to my source.)  That sort of stuff may shock some of you on the outside, but it’s common knowledge in Booger County.

* I’ve heard indirectly from some generally law-abiding people in Robertson County (including some Republicans) who plan to vote for Paschall because they know they can easily get out of DWIs and misdemeanor marijuana charges by directing cash to the right places.  So never mind all the murders, rapes, drug dealing, child molesting, etc. And you wonder why so much of your county is an arm pit?

* Judge Robert M. Stem of the 82nd District Court has to be wondering whether he will get a website before the 2014 elections. He may not have to wait that long. I’m planning to write about the key players in the Booger County Democrat Machine who need a “useful idiot” (i.e., Paschall) in the DA’s office, and why they need him.

Coach cancels interview with investigator

After postponing two previously scheduled meetings with investigators looking into allegations that Coach Steve Mulkey sexually abused female students at Union Grove ISD, Mulkey’s attorney cancelled today’s meeting and said Mulkey would only respond to the investigation in writing,  according to an investigator for the Texas State Board for Educator Certification.

[more…]

Scott Byrum said the case against Mulkey likely will be forwarded to SBEC’s legal division next week, and from there to an administrative judge. If Mulkey does not surrender his teaching certificate before then, the case against Mulkey likely will be heard some time next year.

Six female students testified that Mulkey engaged in sexual misconduct in the 1980s, ranging from sexual harassment to the forcible rape of a 14-year-old girl. Mulkey resigned from Union Grove in September, and the SBEC will determine whether he loses his teacher certification.

Is John Paschall the laziest DA in Texas?

Walter David Sanders

According to the Robertson County District Clerk’s Office, District Attorney John C. Paschall and his staff have tried only one felony case out of 769 that were filed between October 4, 2009 and October 4, 2012. That lone case was tried in January of 2010, which means the DA’s office has not tried a felony case in 21 months.

Paschall has two full-time assistant DAs, plus two secretaries and several investigators. I am awaiting information from the county clerk’s office, but my courthouse sources say Paschall’s office tries perhaps 2 or 3 misdemeanor cases per year.

Is Paschall really that incapacitated by his alcohol problems? Or is he just lazy? And what are he and his assistant DAs doing all day? Clearly, some of his employees have too much time on their hands. You may recall that in 2009, local business owners in Hearne accused one of Paschall’s investigators of trying to intimidate them into removing signs about American Violet, a movie that was embarrassing Paschall.

With three full-time attorneys, Paschall’s office should be trying multiple felonies per year and multiple misdemeanors per month. In all fairness, many of the 769 felony cases were plea bargained, and that’s not inherently bad. But the plea bargaining process only works if the defense attorneys know that the DA’s office is willing (and able) to take a case to trial.

Shortly after I started taking criminal defense appointments in Robertson County in 2007, other local attorneys told me that Paschall never wanted to try a case, therefore you could always get easy plea bargains out of him. And they were right. Every criminal defense attorney within 50 miles of Robertson County knows that Paschall won’t try cases. [more…]

What are the consequences of Paschall’s unwillingness / inability to prosecute cases? My sources tell me the Robertson County News will break a big story on that subject on Wednesday. Meanwhile, I invite Paschall to tell his side of the story. If he wants to explain why his office has not tried a felony case in 21 months, I’ll be glad to post it here and on RedFacedDrunk.com. In fact, if Paschall wants to respond to anything I’ve written about him, e.g., the Marium Oscar case, I’ll be glad to post it here. Or I suppose he could try to get another gag order to shut me up.

Either way, the ball is in Paschall’s court. As one of my friends recently observed, Paschall’s supporters (including his daughter) have called me a lot of names on Facebook, but they’ve not yet called me a liar. None of them — not one — has denied that he refers to black people as “niggers” (and they can’t, because too many witnesses have already testified in Regina Kelly, et al. v. John Paschall, et al. about his use of that word).

None of his supporters have denied that he’s a drunk. None of his supporters have offered an explanation for what happened to the Marium Oscar estate. None of his supporters have denied that he is currently under indictment for a felony. None of his supporters have denied that he was arrested for public intoxication in 2005. None of his supporters have denied that he threatened Steve Stokely, a detective who was investigating Paschall’s brother-in-law for murder.

No, all the Paschall stooges are too busy calling me names, which is fine. I wonder when they’ll figure out that my name is not on the ballot.

UPDATE (1:25 p.m., October 8, 2012): I’ve learned that the Robertson County News story about Walter David Sanders has been postponed until October 17, 2012.  After the first story broke on September 26, 2012, Paschall claimed the victims recanted. But was that true? Dennis Phillips, publisher of the News, decided to find out for himself.

UPDATE (4:00 p.m., October 17, 2012): Robertson County News will not be running a story on October 17, 2012 about Walter David Sanders.

The lawsuit that John Paschall doesn’t want anybody talking about

I think I’ve finally found something that Robertson County DA John Paschall hates more than black people, and that’s the First Amendment. Paschall is really upset about the new website I built for him, RedFacedDrunk.com, so he asked a judge for a “gag order” yesterday. I kid you not. Click right here and read it for yourself.

What is Paschall so worried about? He doesn’t want me talking about Marsha Gilbert and John Gilbert v. John Paschall, a lawsuit that accuses him of swindling money from the estate of Marium Jeanette Oscar. So what am I going to do? Well, I’m going to talk about it, of course. [more…]

Before her death in 2004 at age 95, Ms. Oscar was the last survivor of a once-thriving Jewish community in Calvert, Texas.  If you want a great introduction to her story, click on this news video by Steven Romo of KAGS.  The second installment in Romo’s series is even better, because Paschall did what he does best — run his mouth — without realizing he was being recorded.

According to Gilbert v. Paschall, Paschall got himself appointed executor of Ms. Oscar’s will in 1992, and he obtained a power of attorney in 1996 to handle Ms. Oscar’s affairs. As I previously explained on RedFacedDrunk.com, Paschall was indicted in 1987 for stealing money from the hot check fund that his office oversaw. Here’s a little more detail: a couple of years earlier, the IRS placed several liens on Paschall’s property for failure to pay his income taxes, and he was also sued for failure to pay a school loan. Clearly, Paschall was having serious money problems.

Flash forward to 1997, the year after Paschall obtained control over Ms. Oscar’s affairs, and Paschall had paid off every last one of his tax liens. Things got even more suspicious after Ms. Oscar’s death in 2004.  Here’s an excerpt from the lawsuit:

On November 22, 2004, Mr. Paschall filed Ms. Oscar’s will with the Robertson County Clerk to be probated.  In 2006, the county judge removed Mr. Paschall as executor because he failed to file an inventory of the estate as required by law.  However, even though Mr. Paschall no longer had standing as executor, his attorney immediately asked the county judge to transfer the case to the district court, ostensibly because there were issues of stock and real estate ownership that might require a declaratory judgment.  After the case was transferred to district court, Judge Robert M. Stem immediately reappointed Mr. Paschall as executor.  To date, Mr. Paschall has never sought a declaratory judgment regarding any of the estate properties.

Mr. Paschall finally filed an estate inventory on November 17, 2006.  Numerous items, however, are missing from the inventory.  Several properties listed on the inventory already had been sold by Mr. Paschall, including a 109-acre tract of land that he sold to DonMichael L. Triolo of Bryan on April 8, 2005.  On the other hand, Mr. Paschall failed to list another tract of roughly 100 acres that the estate still owned.  And he failed to notify the court that he had sold the mineral estate belonging to the latter tract to Virginia Jackson on February 2, 2005, even though he had retained the surface estate.  It is not clear what Mr. Paschall did with the proceeds of the sale of the mineral estate.

According to a former member of the Calvert city council, Ms. Oscar asked that her estate proceeds be used to build a Jewish museum in Calvert, and that some of her family’s antique furniture be displayed in the museum.  No proceeds have been used for a museum, and most of the antique furniture has since been destroyed as a result of neglect.  Ms. Oscar made only one specific request in her will, namely, that “my body shall be buried in a Mausoleum, above ground, in a proper and decent manner.”  Mr. Paschall had Ms. Oscar buried beneath ground in what one witness described as the cheapest casket that the funeral home had to offer.  In fact, Ms. Oscar’s body would have been embalmed – a grave violation of Jewish burial customs – but for the fact that two of her Gentile friends intervened to prevent it.

You can read the entire lawsuit by clicking here. (Oops, I guess it’s too late for a gag order to prevent me from doing that). According to Ms. Oscar’s will, the money from her estate was supposed to go into a trust.  Naturally, Paschall had himself named as executor of the trust. But who are the beneficiaries? And does the trust even exist? If not, the money should go to my clients, who are Ms. Oscar’s cousins.

For more than a year, Paschall has refused to produce any documents or answer any questions about the estate or the purported trust. Instead, he has fought tooth and nail to keep anyone from seeing the documents.  On what basis?  His attorney, Bryan F. “Rusty” Russ, Jr., has repeatedly argued in writing and in open court that the court cannot disclose the trust documents, because if the names of the beneficiaries were revealed, that nasty old Ty Clevenger might recruit the named beneficiaries to sue Paschall.  Seriously, that’s his argument.

Obviously, this begs a question. If Paschall hasn’t done anything wrong with the money of the estate / trust, why is he so worried about the beneficiaries suing him? I’ve worked as a cop, a newspaper reporter, and a lawyer, and it’s been my experience that people with nothing to hide don’t try to hide nothing. Paschall claims the trust is real and that it has real beneficiaries (though I’m not sure that either is true*), yet he obviously does not want the purported beneficiaries to know that they are beneficiaries.

On August 17, 2012, Judge H.D. Black, a retired judge from neighboring Limestone County who was assigned to hear the case, ordered Paschall to provide the trust documents to me or file a petition for a writ of mandamus to the court of appeals within 31 days. Naturally, Paschall waited until the last day and then filed his petition with the court of appeals. My response is due on October 10, 2012. In all likelihood, nobody will see anything until after election day, and that was exactly what Paschall intended.

In Paschall’s motion for the “gag order”, Rusty Russ claimed I had threatened to shoot Paschall. Obviously, those boys are wearing their panties a little too tight.  On May 23, 2012, in front of about 15 people in the Robertson County Clerk’s Office, Paschall observed me in the room and started insulting me (“homo,” drug addict, mentally ill, etc.). I told him he was going to be out of a job after the election, and he responded, “I guess I’ll have to come down to Bryan and kick your ass.”

Now that is a threat. I responded on RedFacedDrunk.com as follows: “Please don’t try that. It’s not that I mind shooting you, but I really don’t want to deal with another grand jury investigation.”  That is not a threat — it is an explanation of the rules of engagement. Lest there be any confusion, I will clarify:  If Paschall and his goons put on their white sheets and pointy hats and show up in my yard for a cross burning, I will probably point a gun at them. If they give me reason to believe that anyone (e.g., me) is in danger of serious bodily harm, I will pull the trigger. After all, I don’t plan to end up like Charles Workman or Hank Johnson.

Now Rusty, you can print this out and go running to the judge with another motion if you want, but I’d suggest your client man up and quit acting like a crybaby and a tattletale.  And I’d suggest both of spend a little more time studying the First Amendment.

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* I suspect the beneficiary is non-existent, therefore the trust is void, therefore my clients inherit the money. But that’s awfully hard to determine when you can’t see the trust documents.

UPDATE (Oct. 3, 2012): The comments “counter” has listed as many as 60 comments below, but there actually have been only three. One of them keep posting again and again, but it only appeared once. GoDaddy tells me that’s called a “trackback,” so I have deleted that one comment, and hopefully that will solve the problem. Nobody is being censored (i.e., no “gag order” here), so post as much as you like.

 

The worst DA in Texas?

John C. Paschall

This week marks the launch of RedFacedDrunk.com, the unofficial and completely unauthorized campaign website of Robertson County District Attorney John C. Paschall. Is Paschall the worst DA in the history of Texas? Read and decide for yourself.

UPDATE:  The Bryan-College Station Eagle actually reached Paschall for an interview. You can read the story in today’s newspaper. Judging from what Paschall said, it sounds like he was more drunk than usual.

An open letter to Scrappy Holmes

Clifton L. “Scrappy” Holmes

Dear Mr. Holmes,

As you know, I represent the six women who have accused your client, Steve Mulkey, of sexual misconduct at Union Grove Independent School District. According to a story that ran on the KLTV website yesterday, you said Coach Mulkey “has had his career and life destroyed by slanderous lies, and is forced to resign because he does not have the financial resources to fight the accusations.”

Let’s get our facts straight here. Your client didn’t just decide to throw in the towel after a termination hearing. No, he refused to answer any questions at all from the school district. Granted, I don’t know what your hourly rates are, but I can’t imagine that Coach Mulkey would suffer financial ruin if he decided to spend 2-3 hours answering questions.

Regardless, I don’t believe it’s in your client’s interest to turn this into a credibility contest. I have six transcripts that I could post, plus a couple of photographs. I also have another eight corroborating witnesses who have not yet testified (because we only had time for the six victims’ testimony on August 15, 2012), but I could get written or audio witness statements and post them online.

You haven’t seen any of this, so you really don’t have any way of knowing whether your client resigned because of “slanderous lies.” And you haven’t seen the evidence because your client threw in the towel before the fight started. Whereas my clients have offered to take polygraph tests, we have yet to hear anything from your client about taking a polygraph test.

My clients have been through enough already, and I am not going to sit on the sidelines while you or anyone else tries to impugn them as liars. If you’re wondering how bad this could get, you should consider that we’ve heard from an ex-wife or two, and we know why they divorced your client. And yes, I’ve been told about what happened in Greenville. Bottom line, we can make this just as ugly as y’all want it. But then that’s not really in anybody’s interest, is it?

/s/ Ty Clevenger

 

 

 

Coach Mulkey resigns from Union Grove

As reported in the Longview News-Journal today, Coach Steve Mulkey resigned from Union Grove ISD. According to the News-Journal article, “[school] officials have not said what the investigation involved.”  Well, anyone who has been following this blog knows exactly what the investigation involved, but I’ll add some details.

On August 15, 2012, six women were deposed (under oath) by two school district attorneys in the presence of the superintendent, a court reporter, and me.  The names of three victims were already known, but three more stepped forward.  The nature of the testimony varied from verbal solicitation and providing alcohol to minors to the forcible rape of a 14-year-old girl.

In my opinion, we had enough evidence to convict Steve Mulkey criminally, but for the expiration of the limitations period. In addition to the women who testified, we have produced the names of two male witnesses who can corroborate some of the victims’ testimony. One of these men told me that Coach Mulkey held him by the throat against a wall and warned him not to talk about Coach Mulkey’s ongoing relationship with one of the female students.

The school district asked us not to talk about the investigation while it was ongoing, and we respected that. But now the cat is out of the bag, and it’s time to say a few words to the folks on the Supporters of Coach Jerry Sandusky Steve Mulkey Facebook page. Nobody wants to believe that a friend, relative, father-figure, etc. has done something scandalous or immoral. I get that, because I’ve been faced with troublesome accusations against friends and relatives. Some turned out to be true, and some were false.

In either case, you have to withhold judgment until you hear the whole story. Granted, only a handful of us have heard the evidence, so I’m not asking Mulkey’s friends to consider him guilty, at least not yet.  But instead of waiting to hear what some of us already knew, you started shooting the messengers and blaming the victims. Shame on you, especially those of you who smeared the victims as tramps, sluts, etc. You had better pray to God that he shows you more mercy than you showed them. If your daughter got raped as an adolescent, would you want people talking about how she was a slut and she probably brought it on herself?

A lot of people were angry that we posted information on Facebook. Well, Facebook did exactly what we wanted it to do: it identified new victims and new witnesses, particularly among the target population. Unconventional? Sure it was unconventional, but so what? Unfortunately, the publicly-known victims were attacked so viciously that it probably deterred other victims / witnesses from coming forward. But the truth is going to come out, regardless of whether anybody likes it.

The state board of teacher certification has given Coach Mulkey until September 18, 2012 to submit a written response to the allegations against him or appear in Austin for an investigative interview. Alternatively,  he could surrender his teaching certificate. I’ll post an update when I hear something.

In the meantime, my earlier offer still stands. If Coach Mulkey wants to tell his side of the story, we’ll post it here.

A federal judge who thinks she’s above the law

Ellen-Huvelle3

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I sent a letter to Lamar Smith, chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, about Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C.  Here’s an excerpt:

…Judge Huvelle knowingly assigned herself to a case that implicated her in a crime, then refused to step aside when I objected to her conflict of interest. Shortly thereafter, she summarily dismissed the case with prejudice and sanctioned me $123,802.17 in retaliation.

You can read the rest of the letter here.  As explained in that letter, Judge Huvelle’s escalating misconduct has been brought before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit three times. Thus far, the Court of Appeals has taken no action.

I’d really like to know what the connection is between Judge Huvelle and Patrick Kearney, an attorney with Selzer, Gurvitch, Rabin, Wertheimer, Polott, and Obecny, P.C., a firm in Bethesda, Maryland. If the average attorney had done half of the things that Kearney has done in Judge Huvelle’s courtroom, he’d be in prison. Yet she keeps protecting him. Why?

Walter SmithThe addendum to the letter also mentions Walter S. Smith, Jr., a U.S. district judge in Waco, Texas.  Did Judge Smith dismiss a federal racketeering suit to protect a state district judge who was his friend?  Is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit covering up Judge Smith’s longstanding alcohol problems? Did he grope a female courthouse employee while he was drunk? How many trials did he preside over while he was drunk? (One witness told me she saw him drinking at lunch during the Branch Davidian trials). I think the public deserves answers to these questions.

While I’d like to think these problems are uncommon, my experience suggests otherwise. Shortly after I began practicing law, I had a case before a federal judge in another state. Some local lawyers told me the judge appeared to be having manic episodes on the bench, so the Court of Appeals quietly put him on leave.  After a year, he was put back on the bench, and now he is the chief judge for that district.  I’m informed that his moods can still be erratic, leading lawyers to wonder whether he is taking his medication. Who monitors that? I’m all  in favor of rehabilitation and privacy, but what about protecting the public?

In the addendum, I also urged Chairman Smith to read two articles that appeared in the Houston Chronicle in 2009, both by Lise Olsen: “Secrecy may help protect misbehaving judges” (Dec. 14, 2009) and “Secrecy of chief federal judges questioned” (Dec. 30, 2009). If the federal judiciary is not willing to police itself, then Congress needs to create an independent oversight organization, perhaps something akin to the Government Accountability Office.

Meanwhile, I might just write a book about the things that lawyers and judges (particularly federal judges) get away with. If you have any tips, send them my way (tyclevenger at yahoo.com). If nothing else, I can blog about it… at least until some federal judge suspends the First Amendment.

 

 

 

A cop, a lawyer, and a stripper

Richard A. Scaman, Republican Nominee for Falls County Sheriff

On July 27, 2012, I posted a story about Richard A. Scaman, the ethically challenged candidate for Falls County Sheriff who had his picture taken with a stripper in a topless bar while he was in uniform and on duty with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. You may recall that after TABC fired Scaman, he filed suit against my clients and the TABC director, alleging a conspiracy to make him look bad and to keep him from getting elected as sheriff. (It seems to me he has done a fine job of making himself look bad, without anyone else’s help).

Shortly after the July 27 post, I came across Travis Crabtree’s blog post about the new Texas anti-SLAPP statute.  SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” and the Anti-SLAPP statute protects people who get sued for exercising their First Amendment rights.  One of my clients openly criticized Scaman’s candidacy for sheriff, and Scaman tried to shut him up by filing a lawsuit. That’s exactly the kind of abusive litigation that the anti-SLAPP statute was intended to prevent. (And the tactic wasn’t very successful, because it inspired my client to launch www.fallscountysheriff.com, an anti-Scaman website).

The district court is scheduled to hear our motion to dismiss the lawsuit on anti-SLAPP grounds on August 23, 2012.  If we prevail, Mr. Scaman will have to pay my clients’ costs and attorney fees.

You might be wondering whether Mr. Scaman is represented by an attorney, and he is. Two of them, in fact. Bill Torey is the local attorney, but his role appears to be minimal.  Mr. Scaman’s lead attorney is Mark Stratton, a partner in the Austin office of Shannon, Gracey, Ratliff & Miller, LLP.

Shannon Gracey is a well-respected regional law firm, and that means they are not cheap. Mr. Scaman was fired from his job as a TABC agent, and the last I heard he was still unemployed. So how does an unemployed cop afford the $400-500 hourly rate of a partner in a major Austin law firm?

The Shannon Gracey firm name appears prominently in Mr. Scaman’s original petition, i.e., his lawsuit, but frankly I wonder whether the other partners at Shannon Gracey know anything about it. You can read the original petition by clicking here. In my admittedly biased opinion, the petition is far below the standards of a law firm like Shannon Gracey.  For example, there is no such thing as a claim for “tortious interference” with someone’s Constitutional rights, and any lawyer worth his salt would know that.

Moreover, there are no other attorney names from Shannon Gracey.  Typically, the name of a partner and an associate would appear in the signature line.  The associate (a junior attorney) typically would handle most of the leg work in order to save the client money, but it appears that Mr. Stratton is doing all the work himself.  Why? I suspect nobody else in the firm knows anything about this case, but time will tell. If you have any other ideas, post a comment or send me a message.

UPDATE: My client, Trent Pamplin, just reminded me of something:  Mark Stratton’s name is misspelled (as “Mark Straton”) at the bottom of his own lawsuit.  How did that happen?