In Texas, corrupt politicians face little accountability
Paul Anderson’s red-brick law office faces North Street in Nacogdoches and fits right in with the rest of the offices and cafes along the small city’s main street. The interior reflects Anderson’s flamboyant personality: It’s painted scarlet and features abstract paintings by his law partner along with swords from his days competing internationally as a black belt in kendo, a Japanese martial art. For years, Anderson lived in Houston, where as a citizen he battled developers who had built homes atop toxic waste buried in his neighborhood. He owned a kendo studio and often bested sparring partners in competitions where opponents often leveled bamboo sticks at his throat. But then he went to law school and moved to the sleepy East Texas college town of Nacogdoches, where he expected a quieter life as a “country lawyer.”
That changed in 2020 when Anderson heard a bizarre rumor about Andrew Jones, a local prosecutor running to be the next district attorney. Jones, according to rumor, had practiced law without a license and illegally prosecuted dozens of people. Anderson feared local residents’ civil rights had been violated; he wanted the rumors investigated and Jones held accountable if they proved true. “I love the place. I love the people,” Anderson says. “But there’s corruption here that is protected by the East Texas piney curtain.”
He unearthed public records that revealed that in 2013, Jones, then a recent law school graduate, was hired by the Nacogdoches district attorney’s office as an assistant district attorney, despite the fact that he had a pending charge from November 2012 for driving under the influence in Bexar County. The State Bar of Texas listed him as ineligible to practice on November 4, 2013, around the time Jones passed the bar exam. Based on bar rules, which require background checks and evidence of good moral character for all prospective lawyers, Anderson argues in his complaint that the pending DWI charge, Jones’ second in Texas, is the most likely reason Jones was found ineligible. Somehow, instead of losing his job, Jones kept prosecuting people in Nacogdoches. Anderson claims that Jones signed charging documents and felony plea deals for at least 30 people between December 2013, when he was ineligible, and September 2014, when he was granted his law license. Jones pleaded no contest to DWI in June 2014, court records show, and also prosecuted people during his one-year probation under a deferred adjudication plea deal.
In the fall of 2020, Anderson contacted the Texas Rangers—the lead law enforcement agency for public integrity and public corruption investigations. His first request went unanswered; then he sent another, and another, and another. “Given the serious allegations and apparent disregard for the evidence available to the Texas Rangers,” Anderson wrote in one of the many emails he sent, “a formal response from [Department of Public Safety] would be appreciated.” Anderson got an email confirming that one Ranger had called the bar about Jones. But he later learned via other emails that his allegations were not investigated further because supervisors at the Department of Public Safety (DPS), which oversees the Rangers, had rejected a formal probe.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/corrupt-texas-politicians-face-little-accountability/
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