Sometime today the Collin County grand jury should receive a letter requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the purchase and sale of the Collin Central Appraisal District headquarters site, a deal that netted six or seven figures for District Attorney Greg Willis, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and their business partners. Let’s hope that shady transaction finally gets the attention that it deserves.
I originally blogged about the CCAD site on March 23, 2015. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the Lone Star Project later sent a letter to the grand jury on May 12, 2015 after it uncovered new details about the transaction. The letter was sent in care of Assistant DA Gail Falco Leyko. On June 25, 2015, after I learned about the Lone Start Project letter, I sent an email to Ms. Leyko asking whether the letter had been delivered. On the same day, Judge Chris Oldner signed an order sealing the names of grand jurors.
I later learned that Ms. Leyko had not delivered the letter to grand jurors, and as I explained in my July 13, 2015 and July 14, 2015 posts, it appeared that the DA’s office was trying to block access to the grand jury by getting Judge Oldner and Judge John Roach, Jr. to seal the names of grand jurors. In other words, it appeared that Ms. Leyko was trying to protect her boss from a grand jury investigation, and for good reason.
You will recall that I started writing letters to grand jurors back in March when it became obvious that Mr. Willis and/or his staff were trying to block any investigation of Mr. Paxton, who was not only Mr. Willis’s business partner but a personal friend since college. The grand jury ultimately went rogue, forcing Mr. Willis to step aside and ultimately leading to the indictment of Mr. Paxton on securities charges.
In an August 10, 2015 letter, Judge Oldner wrote, “[i]f any credible person has information concerning an offense liable to indictment, I will insure the information is made available to the grand jury.” I finally got around to sending a letter in care of Judge Oldner last week, and his assistant confirmed receipt yesterday. As I explained in that letter, First Assistant DA Bill Dobiyanski had previously defended the DA’s office by claiming that, rather than providing the Lone Star Project letter to the grand jury, it had provided the letter to the Texas Rangers and the special prosecutors assigned to the Paxton case, Brian Wice and Kent Schaffer.
As Mr. Dobiyanski would have known, however, the special prosecutors had no jurisdiction to investigate the real estate transactions, because their appointments were limited to violations of the Texas Securities Act. Mr. Dobiyanski also would have known that DPS policy prevents the Texas Rangers from investigating a public official unless the local district attorney first agrees in writing to prosecute any offenses that the Rangers find. In other words, Mr. Willis would first have to agree in writing that he would prosecute himself if the Rangers uncovered any crimes in which he participated. Obviously, Mr. Willis has never made any such commitment.
A grand jury can demand a special prosecutor if it intends to investigate the DA, according to one Texas appellate court, and under those circumstances the trial judge is obligated to appoint a special prosecutor. Since Mr. Willis will not recuse himself despite his conflicts of interest, let’s hope the grand jury goes rogue again and makes that decision for him.
Damn! I cannot believe this! Self-dealing is certainly nothing new to Paxton, but it appears the tentacles are spreading. I’m starting to wonder about Oldner and Roach.
Shine a light on this and let the facts be exposed..
The exact thing is happening here in Falls County, I am going to have to give up fighting for myself here, But now my son is being tortured in the Falls County Jail to keep me a good girl and I have had it up to my eyeballs with the corruption in these small towns. Soon as I got here I started asking why If the county recieved 16.6 million dollars in grants and loans in 2009 for our water to be safe, and yet we are still on waterboil regullarly. And how the Mayor runs a fake non-profit Animal rescue collecting donations for 9 years! And yet we still dont even have an animal shelter! Our dogs end up shot in the city park. 14 fake non-profits here alone. I took in some counterfiet money to the Marlin police station and they would not even take it! My Son spent 30 days in the suicide tank without toilet paper when he got out after 2 MONTHS his infections were bad enouugh that they had to put him on the highest antibiotic…he was rearrested the very next morning by JUDGE Stem! the same Judge that my son had robbed his house when he was a teenager! Judge Stem ruled him not of sound mind and put him right back in Jail! It has been 5 months now all around a Leash ticket! I was molested by an On Duty Police Officer and I reported it immediately and I have been arrested 4 times since, 3 days AFTER I filed an Internal Affairs Complaint I was raided and charged with 3 false charges! my bond was double other peoples with the same charges. It is insane, I feel like I am in Twilight Zone, becaause this is not how the real world works. The politicians here are truely guilty of the Rico Act, I am still under the chance of being indited and terrified that me or my son will be another hung inmate in the Falls County Jail. I wrote the ACLU and never even got a “ScrewOFF” we dont wanna help you.
I went 7 weeks without one piece of mail, Something is fishey about that too.
OH My you have been sturring up the pot …..smells like justice. Them bad guys keep getting caught….sweet!
Yeah, these are corrupt people preying on the public… They need to sit in a jail cell for a few years to get the corruption out of the Collin County Sysyem..
I am so happy to see that there are other people in Texas who care about justice. Yes, most of the officials up on Bloomdale are crooks. I have letters, emails, motions, audio, and video showing their crookedness. In fact, Dobiyanski once played the same game with me, the DPS, and the Texas Rangers. He did everything in his power to obstruct justice. I hope that they find that justice that they have been avoiding.