Justice of the Peace and readers speak out

Jacksonville, TX:

Several articles in the Jacksonville Daily Progress and Tyler Paper have cited an open letter from Justice of the Peace James Morris to State Attorney General Gregg Abbott requesting an investigation into the Cherokee County Commissioner’s Court. Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Morris alleges fraud, tax evasion, accepting bribes, violation of the Open Meetings Law and retaliation. Morris’ main complaint, which he later retracted, was that Cherokee County officials were accepting monthly contributions from a local proprietary tax software and law firm (Source: Tyler Paper June 27, 2009)

Our readers’ comments:

Re 6/2/2009 James Morris letter in Jacksonville Daily Progress and 6/12/2009 Progress article responses from Pct. 2 County Commissioner Kevin Pierce and Pct. 4 Commissioner Byron Underwood. I think Jacksonville’s New Hope Baptist Church Pastor / Pct. 3 JP James Morris’ and the county commissioners’ toing and froing is a just another diversion. One has decided to play the ‘victim;’  the other the so-called ‘bad guys.’ Cherokee County in its entirety is corrupt. It is not the Attorney General’s charge to investigate local corruption; it is the Cherokee County District Attorney’s office. It is almost laughable if it wasn’t so true.

 
Agreed, as stated in last month’s blog

The corrupt judicial hubris operating for decades in Cherokee County, Texas is itself anti-constitutional, illegal and un-American. It operates in a cohesive little unit of the same group of elected officials, who often as a diversionary tactic pretend to denunciate each other. Don’t be fooled.

The failed Brian Walker (R) campaign alleged that election Box 36 located in New Hope Baptist Church provided illegal swing votes that pushed incumbent Chuck Hopson (D) over the top to keep the Texas House District 11 seat for Cherokee County. Candidate Walker would have to legally challenge the election results in corrupt Cherokee County court, lose the contest in a tainted jury selection (containing the same old ladies who provided the illegal swing votes) and pay the enormous lawyer fees the Hopson defense team would have incurred. Brian Walker was obviously advised by his own attorneys he faced bankruptcy if he continued to press for an election outcome investigation.

Another reader elaborates:

The Pct. 3 election judge at Jacksonville’s New Hope Baptist Church voting location was more than two hours late turning in her ballots in Rusk when the drive from that location should have taken 15 minutes. The obviously inappropriate actions stink to high heaven of election fixing right there inside Morris’ own church. A 3/18/2009 article in the Cherokeean Herald quotes newly [re]elected State Representative Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville that “he is unaware of any illegal activities in elections in his district” and that, after talking with the registrars in his 4-county district, “they are not aware of any voter fraud in any elections. ”

Hopson says “However, if there is a perception, we need to know about it.” Well what about outright in-your-face doesn’t get any more blatant than your hometown’s Pct. 3 election judge violating election rules and showing up over two hours late to the County Seat in Rusk, TX on election night? In a squeaker election between Hopson and Brian Walker. Do any of us with two simultaneously functioning brain cells expect any voter registrar in the notorious east Texas pineywoods to just say you betcha Rep. Hopson, I can write an encyclopedia about the voter fraud I’ve witnessed in this region. Good grief, maybe you’re gulled but I’m not.

And lastly:

How many Cherokee County property owners know who selects their grand jurors? Behind the much misused veil of secrecy about the grand jury process hides the anti-American fact that here in Cherokee County there is no compunction whatsoever about violating Government Code, Title 5 Open Government; Ethics. Subtitle B. Ethics, Chapter 573. Degrees of Relationships; Nepotism Prohibitions when it comes to choosing their own relatives and close friends to be seated.

A bit off topic, but the Editor agrees that nepotism and corruption go hand in hand. Voter fraud is common in East Texas and the Attorney General’s office more often than not ignores the complaints. Smith County officials and the AG’s office were recently notified of illegal voting activities during the City of Winona’s Wet/Dry Elections according to the Tyler Paper.  Ineligible voters outside the city limits were allowed to cast their votes, according to complaints (Source: Tyler Paper June 20, 2009).

Similarly, Liberty County Judge Phil Fitzgerald was under investigation by the Attorney General for allegedly dropping DUI charges on his relatives (Source: Houston Chronicle April 19, 2009). Favoritism and sweetheart deals for relatives of East Texas officials have been going on for decades. There is simply not enough bandwidth on the Internet to document the Good ‘Ol Boy/Biddie network allowing the guilty to remain unaccountable. Their favorite technique with the help of small town prosecutors and newspapers is to blame innocents for the illegal activity they and their family members commit.

Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 James Morris’ open letter to the Attorney General:

 

The Ethics of Hubris

Hubris can be defined as blatant arrogance; the misuse of one’s position to commit violence against the knowledgeable and well-informed.

In Cherokee County, that translates into elected officials shaming others for the sole purpose of increasing their own standing within the community. That is why businesses and school teachers are leaving by the droves. Those who have made a living framing innocent people and those who propagate the district attorney’s disregard of the Texas Penal Code are the most dangerous individuals in greater East Texas. Cherokee County district attorney Elmer Beckworth has lied to State legislators, has lied to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and lies just as often in quotes from the Jacksonville Daily Progress.

The highest legal authority in Cherokee County has told the Texas District and County Attorney’s Association that the felony bond of one Michael Harris of Jacksonville, TX could not be revoked for repeated violations of protective orders. Beckworth’s office has filed briefs with the highest criminal court in Austin stating that he and his investigator did not seek to have an incarcerated felon’s parole dismissed in exchange for the parole’s testimony against death row inmates Richard Cobb and Buenka Adams. And when questioned on how an infant molester can be offered probation, the District Attorney’s asinine answer is ”because the victim wouldn’t testify.” 

Jacksonville, TX:
Not reported by the Jacksonville Daily Progress – Local mother and son arrested during the investigation of sex assaults on two infants, 1 and 2-years old. Dickie P.Bellanger, 21 and his mother Candi Bellanger, 36 were arrested in Jacksonville, TX on Friday May 22, 2009 after forensics obtained at the East Texas Medical Center showed evidence of ongoing sexual abuse of the two infants in their care. The one-year old showed signs of bruising and rape. After both infants were retrieved from the household by CPS, medical examinations showed evidence of sexual trauma on the two-year old sibling. Dickie Bellangerwas charged with two counts each of aggravated sexual assault and injury to a child; his bond was set at $2 million. His mother Candi Bellanger was charged with child endangerment for not reporting the alleged crimes. They both are in custody waiting for their court-appointed attorneys to flip a coin.

 

 
Mother and son, Candi and Dickie Bellanger arraigned

 

The report of the arrest appears out of region in the Tyler TX newspaper. Actually reported by the Jacksonville Daily Progress in 2008: Dickie P. Bellanger was arrested in March 2008 on burglary of a building charges; his felony bond was set at $3500. After throwing himself at the mercy of Cherokee County prosecutors, his burglary charges were dropped.

Now one year later, it takes a newspaper 50 miles away to report the ongoing sexual abuse arrests of more Cherokee County residents. Will district attorney Elmer Beckworth wait until the injured children are old enough to speak before convening a grand jury? Will Cherokee County prosecutors instead have the Jacksonville Daily Progress print yet another conjured account on how the victims’ unwillingness to testify would therefore justify probation at sentencing? Or as current district attorney Elmer Beckworth puts it “because the victim isn’t able to participate in the trial.” (Source Jacksonville Daily Progress)

This is why the Jacksonville Daily Progress refuses to report on the alleged sex assault of two hometown Jacksonville, TX infants. Because the Tyler Paper mentioned the CPS report and medical forensics of the injured children. And local Cherokee County newspapers are programmed to print every lie fed to them by the supporters of the current political structure. Let’s face it folks, their livelihoods depend solely on covering their assets, so actual free and independent press they are not. Last month registered sex offender Kenneth Dexter Folmar, given eight years probation for the aggravated sex assault of a one-year baby girl, was rounded up three years into his deferred adjudication. Folmar was caught with beer cans and sentenced to 50 years in TDCJ by the same District Judge who gave him 8 years probation for raping a one-year old.

The District Attorney’s office continued the lie when word of the Kenneth Folmar probation violation (initially reported as a repeat sex offense) made it to print.

Kenneth Folmar

 

Cherokee County’s district attorney Elmer Beckworth told the Jacksonville Daily Progress that he did in fact speak to the victim before the trial. He spoke to a toddler who couldn’t get her story straight. Therefore the district attorney’s office had no choice but to offer 8 years probation for the sex assault of a 12-month old.

“I remember this case well. In talking with her myself, she was not able to talk about it at all, and when the case came to grand jury she was able to talk about it only minimally,” Beckworth said. (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress April 26, 2009)
 

No mention of any medical exams conducted at the ETMC or any CPS investigation leading to the arrest of Kenneth Folmar. Just blatant lies by another Cherokee County elected official claiming to have interviewed a toddler, while ignoring forensics.

They obviously believe they have so much authority because of their hubris, that they can say and do whatever they want. The Rusk Cherokeean Herald and Jacksonville Daily Progress each divvy up the lies and print the story best suited for their supporters. Take for example the May 3, 2009 conflicting reports of the ongoing Robert Fox prosecution. On one hand the Daily Progress reports the City of Jacksonville mayor, chief of police and detectives are somehow at odds with the Cherokee County District Attorney (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress “Local fringe group has city and prosecutor squaring off”)

The article states that the mayor of Jacksonville Robert Haberle and Police Chief Reece Daniel petitioned the Attorney General to seat a special prosecutor to take criminal legal action against the House of Israel. They cited a lack of confidence with district attorney Elmer Beckworth’s handling of the Robert Fox case, alluding to Fox’s alleged intimidation tactics of filing multiple federal complaints against the county.

A sharp contrast to the same update on the upcoming Robert Fox plea bargain in the Cherokeean Herald. The Herald reports the mayor of Jacksonville simply “requested that the cases [against Robert Fox] be prosecuted more aggressively.” (Source: March 6, 2009 Cherokean Herald  “Anti-government group leader is indicted… ”) No mention of the Attorney General.

Before the headline is completed, the lie begins “similar cases have been fielded by district attorneys in Collin, Williamson counties.” Again, this is all smoke and mirrors coming from a corrupt legal system creating fictitious charges in order to justify its own ongoing unethical activity. The charges and indictments of “tampering with a government record and simulating a legal process” against Robert Fox is another penal statute created out of thin air to prevent federal lawsuits from being filed against out of control police departments.

Robert Fox

 

Despite Robert Fox’s failings as leader of the House of Israel prison ministry and as Jacksonville’s chief of police put it, his “voluminous frivolous legal findings and lawsuits in an attempt to intimidate the police, prosecutors and judges” (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress ),  Robert Fox did hit a raw nerve when he challenged the Jacksonville Police Department’s illegal raid on the House of Israel. In a well-articulated (and hard to find) petition for a Franks Hearing submitted by Fox, he clearly points out Cherokee County’s habit of generating a SEARCH WARRANT, prior to establishing genuine probable cause. Fox contends there was no reasonable reason for entry because there wasn’t an existing ARREST WARRANT on file.

The Jacksonville PD was given carte blanche to conduct an open-ended search to find whatever so-called incriminating items they may need within the House of Israel. Without stating verbatim per a bona fide legal SEARCH WARRANT the singularly specific items they were after. The search warrant itself would not stand up in an incorrupt courtroom.

The doors of the House of Israel were knocked down prior to any COMPLAINT being filed with the Cherokee County Clerk. The fact is that in Cherokee County and other small agencies, the district attorney himself composes the SEARCH WARRANT with investigating officers. And Cherokee County’s district attorney makes sure the Municipal Judges signing the Warrant allow for an open-ended search and therefore illegal seizure. Investigators tout confiscating Robert Fox’s legal writings during the multiple raids, claiming the Fox tirades to be pro-Taliban, though nonetheless NOT illegal and NOT part of the scope of the SEARCH WARRANT.

Cherokee County prosecutors realize the legal mess of having the Attorney General’s office scrutinizing an open-ended search, so they must attempt to criminalize Robert Fox’s cantankerous federal motions. Therefore, they and the local newspapers continue to attempt to brand Robert Fox as a dangerous terrorist sympathizer, in order to contaminate the jury pool.

Robert Fox was no-billed on the initial charge of barratry, written in the original arrest by district attorney Elmer Beckworth. Now Beckworth is taking the high road for not prosecuting all the charges against Robert Fox, levied by Beckworth himself? We’re supposed to feel good that the Jacksonville, TX police department stormed the House of Israel without probable cause? To arrest House of Israel members who had earlier been in Cherokee County custody?

Robert Fox’s lawsuits and thus his “records tampering” would have never come to fruition without the increasing unconstitutional harassment of Cherokee County law enforcement. They went after him to make themselves look better. In the Daily Progress, district attorney Elmer Beckworth lays the onus of the bogus charges on the over-zealous Jacksonville police department. The current focus on Robert Fox are his “dangerous” and highly argumentative (though often credible) legal briefs. Fox’s Civil Rights requests must be quelled by the District Attorney and labeled as “tampering with government records” in order for Project Got to Fool ‘Em to succeed.

The corrupt judicial hubris operating for decades in Cherokee County, Texas is itself anti-constitutional, illegal and un-American. It operates in a cohesive little unit of the same group of elected officials, who often as a diversionary tactic pretend to denunciate each other. Don’t be fooled.

If the District Court bailiff has been arrested in McAllen, TX for selling drugs to an undercover federal agent, then both the district judge and district attorney are notified by the Department of Justice. Wouldn’t want the Feds looking at the timecards of rapist cop Larry Pugh or mileage reports of Cherokee County Constable Randy Thompson busted for selling methamphetamines…

You know because Cherokee County has what they call a “lightning rod” for terrorism sitting in the Rusk, Texas jail, unable to post bail or hire an untethered out-of-district attorney. Which is ironic considering the 369th District Court can concoct government records to indicate Constable Randy Thompson as Missing In Action, one day before his federal drug trafficking indictment. Yet the same District Court can put Robert Fox on trial  for “tampering with government records” to censor his legal diatribe.  And to make sure to get at least one misinformed Texas trial jury to finally criminalize the filing of complaints and legal briefs by American citizens. Without the help of drunken and sycophantic lawyers in the District Attorney’s pocket.

In similar corruption news in neighboring counties where the law is applied appropriately—

Tyler, TX:
TCDJ prison guard Rudolph Regalado was arrested for allegedly hiring a hit man to murder the husband of his girlfriend. Cathryn Lake, the wife of the intended victim was also charged with solicitation for murder. “She was in the process of raising the husband’s life insurance, and we believe that was the main motive behind the plot,” according to investigators. (Source: Tyler Paper May 22, 2009)

In Cherokee County, the murder for remuneration would have resulted in an innocent outside the conspiracy being charged and the district attorney’s office dividing the insurance payouts with state witnesses, the widow and her lover. Similarly, former Cherokee County district attorney Charles Holcomb used the life insurance monies to pay State witnesses in State vs. Terry Watkins.  (Source: Cherokeean Herald June 3, 1993)

Palestine, TX:
State licensed firearm instructor Ronnie Cook was charged with the murder of his wife after a May 13, 2009 standoff with police that lasted three hours. Palestine police had responded to a 911 call that indicated Cook may have shot his 62-year old wife.

Upshur County, TX:
Upshur County school teacher and coach John Cotcha Tiger, 40, of Longview, was sentenced by 115th District Court Judge Lauren Parish on charges of improper relationship between educator and student, and on-line solicitation of a minor, according to news releases. The victim was a 15-year old girl; Tiger was sentenced to two concurrent fifteen year prison terms. Sex assault of a minor charges were dropped, as part of the plea bargain.

Alto, TX:
Alto ISD PE coach Paul Dixon was indicted earlier this month for having an improper teacher/student relationship. His father, John Paul Dixon was also placed on administrative leave for allegedly interfering with witnesses and the investigation. (Source: Tyler Paper)

Bullard, TX:
City Secretary Patty McMillian Cooper , 63 of Troup, TX was fined and placed on probation for theft of city funds on March 27, 2007.  She stole over $84,000 over a four year period. On Sunday, April 12, 2009 she was rearrested for theft of funds from another previous employer, Tyler, TX based Williams Law Firm. She is out of Smith County Jail on a $100,000 bond. Theft of city funds is pretty common in the Piney Woods. (Source: Tyler Paper April 13, 2009)

Shelby County, TX:
Shelby County Sheriff Deputy Lana Sue “Susie” Calhoun , 49 of Timpson, was arrested for DWI by the DPS after a wreck in Garrison, TX. Sources indicate she had previously worked as a Nacogdoches County jailer and campus police for Stephen F. Austin State University. (Source: Longview News-Journal May 8, 2009)

Gregg County:
Two female Gregg County jailers have been arrested for assisting in the jail break of two inmates last week. Gracie Carrillo, 20 and Yvonne Oliver, 25 both from Longview, were charged with facilitating the escape of convicted murderer Desmond Jackson and murder suspect Bruce Kelly last Tuesday from the Gregg County jail. Carrillo and Oliver each face second and third degree felony charges. (Source: Tyler Paper May 23, 2009)

Child molester given probation arrested again for “sex assault of child.” DPS reports age of victim.

April is Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness month in Texas, and has been proclaimed as such by the county judge in Cherokee County. Are citizens aware that another sex offense arrest has recently occurred by a registered sex offender on probation? County officials are most certainly ‘aware’ of it.

Posted in February 2008: District Attorney gives probation to Rusk, Texas infant molester; Cherokee County newspapers never reported it.

Criminal Docket; Case 16209 ; AGG SEXUAL ASSAULT CHILD
THE STATE OF TEXAS vs FOLMAR, KENNETH DEXTER (DOB: 02/08/1963)
Filed 08/23/2005 – Disposition: 11/16/2006: 8 years deferred adjudication in the 2nd District Court, Cherokee County, Texas

Victim’s age: 1

             (Source: Texas Offender Registry and Family Watchdog)

Now a registered sex offender on probation and living within the community has been arrested again for what has been reported as the sex assault of a child. And again the local newspapers have buried the story in a slew of Cherokee County arrests for the time period of March 24 through March 30, 2009. (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress April 5, 2009)

Rusk, TX: Registered sex offender Kenneth D. Folmar, who had been on probation given to him by the Cherokee County District Attorney, has been arrested for another child sex assault charge. Or has he?  Kenneth “Kenny” Folmar, now 46, was serving eight years deferred adjudication for the Aggravated Sexual Assault of a one-year baby girl. He had been arrested in 2005 from the earlier incident and had prior drug possession convictions. His bond has not been set (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress).

Kenneth Dexter Folmar

Apparently the decision has been made decades ago that it is in the interest of the county to roll out the Welcome mat to sex offenders, in order to pilfer their probation dues. Remember, it is never in the interest of the children in Cherokee County, despite the propaganda pieces designed to shift attention and blame elsewhere. The Tyler Paper reports that Cherokee County officials and the local CPS declare April as “Child Abuse Awareness Month.” No mention of the paltry budget Cherokee County’s Child Protective Services must compete with in the Commissioner’s Court, against stocked catfish ponds, paving private driveways and contributions to everybody’s hush funds.

The lie is that Cherokee County officials actually want to decrease the incidents of child abuse and child rape within the community, when in reality it is a source of income for the county coffers. Why would the district court place an individual such as the one above on monthly probation without treatment -even for the sex assault of an infant complete with pictures probably, when they are totally cognizant of the recidivism rate? Is it because they are arrogant and simply don’t care? Or is it that they would rather play small town politicians by conducting Blue Ribbon ceremonies to convince voters that Cherokee County officials are not making a living off the [repeated] sex offenses within the community?

The other lie is that “prosecutors’ caseloads are too large.” If that were true, why are they signing up sex offenders and opening up halfway houses all across the county?  

Kenneth Folmar’s recent arrest and age of the alleged victim has of course been buried by local media outlets, as they always do when the actions of allies of elected officials are too unsavory to print. Because sex offender Kenneth Folmar was not originally incarcerated (but instead granted probation and thus making him a monthly payment depositor into Cherokee County’s Corrections and Supervision account) he was free to in essence repeat his offense. There’s no telling what this guy has been doing.

Quite frankly, if convicted sex offenders are sent off to prison, they won’t be making monthly payments to the county. Is this why the Cherokee County district attorney recommends probation rather than incarceration in order to keep sex offenders’ monthly supervision fees at the county’s disposal? Would those who join in for the propaganda on the Rusk courthouse steps manage to shrug off complacency about the district attorney’s motives if the child preyed upon was their own?

If Cherokee County prosecutors possessed even an iota of genuine morality, the most egregious sex offenders wouldn’t be able to enrich the county coffers with Probationers’ payments because they would be in prison. Instead, prosecutors’ actions clearly show they are willing to risk pedophiles’ repeat offending in order to ensure continued deposits of local sex offenders’ money into county-owned and operated bank accounts.

If Cherokee County news agencies and their supporters possessed even a smidgen of integrity, they would be demanding resignation letters instead of celebrating and “blowing bubbles” on the Rusk courthouse lawn (Source: Tyler Paper).

A quick search of Texas jail records shows the other Cherokee County sex offenders on probation who have recently violated their community supervision orders. Sex offenders in the area on probation who have been arrested and/or absconded as of April 10, 2009:

• “Gary” Michael Morrison, b. 10/24/1957 Alto TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old female; currently in the Cherokee County TX jail.
• Matthew Isiah White, b. 10/01/1988 Bullard TX, indecency by exposure involving a 15-year-old female; failure to register in Smith County TX.
• Christopher Steven Golman, b. 10/03/1972 Gallatin TX, aggravated sexual assault of a disabled 39 year-old female. Arrested in 2000 by Smith County authorities for public intoxication; transferred to TDCJ Michael Unit.
• John Keith Glenn, b. 7/16/1982 Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of an 8-year-old female; failure to register.
• Kevin Lynn Hawes, b. 10/29/1963 Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 15-year-old; probation violation sentenced to TDCJ.
• Christopher Michael Hennessy, b. 9/16/1980 Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 15-year-old female; absconded and sentenced to TDCJ.
• Paul Arlen Taylor b. 9/30/1955 Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 13-year-old female; incarcerated in TDCJ.
• James William Hammons, Sr. b. 9/21/1960 Rusk TX, 8 years probation in 1998 for aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old female in Cherokee County; in 2008 drug possession in Cherokee County -sentenced 2 years State Jail time by district attorney. Currently incarcerated in Orange County jail.
• Jason Bradley Fears, b. 11/17/1988 Bullard TX, 3 ½ years State Jail for sex assault of 7-year old male in Cherokee County; recent failure to register- verified by Smith County, TX.

(Source: online Texas DPS Sex Offender Registry)

This is how Cherokee County operates: County officials generating misinformation while the local newspapers ever so cleverly hide the factual sex offense statistics from the public. They would rather dance around the courthouse blowing each other kisses, days after another child has been molested under their collective noses and on their watch. Days after an innocent child is sewn up in the hospital, they’ll blame the “harder economic times” for the “alarming rate of child abuse ” instead of the current Cherokee County District Attorney deliberately setting the stage for repeat sex offenses. (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress)

As a footnote, the Jacksonville Daily Progress published an unprepared and unrehearsed rebuttal for the initial light sentencing of Kenneth D. Folmar, citing a “probation violation” for the more recent incarceration. They also report Kenneth Folmar was sentenced to 50 years confinement for “violating” the terms of his probation. The original presiding judge who accepted the initial deferred adjudication also presided over the revocation.

The Daily Progress has not issued a correction notice for the Cherokee County arrests for the week of March 24 through March 30, which initially reported Kenneth Folmar’s arrest as “aggravated sexual assault of a child.” As opposed to yet another sex offender not mentioned in either article, but again buried within the Jacksonville Daily Progress’ list of Cherokee County arrests for the time period April 14 through April 20, 2009: Cheney La-Vaughn Carter, dob. 2/1/1966, sex assault of 15 yr. old girl; given 10 yrs. probation. Carter is currently sitting in Cherokee County, TX without bond for violation of his (sex offense) probation.

No spur-of-the-moment articles have been printed explaining the Cheney Carter probation revocation. The Kenneth Folmar story on the other hand, had been up to this point completely ignored and buried. Of course, like clockwork, the big lie the local media, the Cherokee County District Attorney and district court would have their loyal readers believe is that the victim is to blame for not being willing to go to trial. Even in the case of an infant.

According to district attorney Elmer Beckworth

I remember this case well. In talking with her myself, she was not able to talk about it at all, and when the case came to grand jury she was able to talk about it only minimally,” Beckworth said. “With her inability to talk about it, I knew we were on real shaky ground. We went ahead and took the plea because there was the huge likelihood of him being found not guilty or even possibly of a directed verdict. (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress)

The DPS sex offender registry actually lists the female victim as being a one-year old infant. Who are you gonna believe? Sex offenses by their very nature are prosecuted everyday without the trial testimony of the victim, or in the case the district attorney is referring to – a toddler who was molested while she was an infant. So they postponed Folmar’s indictment and dragged the case out until she learned how to baby talk? The offense occurred in 2002; Folmar was formally charged 3 years later.

Attention Daily Progress: You need to verify your timelines. You are being lied to again.

View the Kenneth Dexter Folmar sex offender registry and victim’s age at: https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/DPS_WEB/Portal/index.aspx for a comparison of Fact Versus Fiction. The Sex Offender Regristry reports everything down to the shoe size of the offender.

Instead of being honest and admitting the Kenneth Folmar molestation wasn’t of any political interest to the district attorney’s office in 2005, Elmer Beckworth discloses the State’s prosecutorial strategy:

The only reason people ever get probation for the aggravated sexual assault of a child is because the victim isn’t able to participate in the trial. It can be very aggravating as a prosecutor to be in a situation like this where the whole case falls apart because the victim’s ability to testify has been compromised. (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress)

Sounds like excuse-making by the same people who offered these indigent offenders their original lenient plea bargains. These probationers were rushed through the Cherokee County court system for admitting their guilt and willingness to contribute to the county payroll via Adult Supervision fees. You, the lowly taxpayers are supposed to believe that Kenneth Folmar’s nondisclosed court appointed counsel worked out his initial probation agreement with the district judge without Elmer Beckworth’s recommendations.

It is the prosecutor who offers “adjudicated probation,” not the defendant’s lawyer. Plus the defendant must agree to a guilty or no-contest plea. The conviction remains on the defendant’s record and in the case of a sexual assault, the defendant agrees to be registered as a sex offender for life. In the case of Kenneth Folmar, he pleaded guilty and agreed to everything Elmer Beckworth offered him.

This type of justification for probated child molesters is more like a ‘How-to-Guide.’ Local sex offenders will be even more emboldened now if they heed the District Attorney’s advice: if their victims are young enough and afraid enough not to testify, then the district judge will agree to a probated sentence.

The district attorney is saying the statements from arresting officers, examining doctors, and CPS specialist investigating the sex offense of an infant in Cherokee County simply won’t pass the litmus test for going to trial. Or the statements from those who caught the perpetrator in the act. Or any forsenic evidence for that matter. As if hearsay, innuendos and complete fabrication of evidence has never been enough to summon a petit jury in Cherokee County, Texas.

The fact is the district attorney’s focus has been on parading fictitious bail requirements in Austin (according to the ‘Faye Harris amendment’) during the same time period the majority of the sex offenders were shunted through their plea bargains. And just like Michael Harris (the man on felony bond who murdered his wife because her protective orders were not enforced) these offenders have struck again repeatedly. It was in 2005 that Jacksonville police officer Larry Pugh was on patrol and raping women at gunpoint.

Again, which are you gonna believe? That a 3-year old victim was actually called to a Cherokee County grand jury to testify what happened to her before her first birthday? Or the District Attorney’s advice to sex offenders on how to avoid prison?

The only reason people ever get probation for the aggravated sexual assault of a child is because the victim isn’t able to participate in the trial.   (Quote from the Jacksonville Daily Progress.)

Project Got to Fool ‘Em Again is in full deployment this Month.

Alto ISD coach accused of improper relationship with student. Houston County bailiff and sheriff investigator indicted. DPS Sergeant booked for indecency.

Alto, TX:  Alto ISD coach Paul Dixon is currently under investigation by authorities for having an alleged improper teacher/student relationship with an underage girl. Coach Dixon, age 37, turned in his resignation last week in response to allegations of text messaging a female student. Another “unnamed” Alto ISD faculty member has also resigned for allegedly obstructing the investigation. Teacher/student improprieties can be prosecuted as 2nd degree felonies under current Texas law.

  Alto ISD coach Paul Dixon

Crockett, TX:  Tyler’s federal court has indicted two Houston County sheriff deputies for an alleged civil rights violation occurring in the Davy Crockett National Forest. District court bailiff Charles James Clark and narcotics investigator Henry Doyce Gresham, Jr. are both charged with conspiracy and assault of a Crockett, TX man the pair allegedly TASERED and left for dead out in the National Forest in July 2008. The two Houston County deputies, Clark age 63 and Gresham age 50, are on administrative leave pending their federal trial. No need for a pseudo-concerned citizen and buddy-buddy district judge to call an urgent removal hearing for this bailiff and narcotics officer, a la’ Randall Thompson.

Rusk, TX: Cherokee County DPS Sergeant Thomas Bledsoe was suspended with pay Friday March 20, 2009 from an indecent exposure arrest earlier the previous month. Sgt. Bledsoe allegedly pulled his pants down and flashed a female DPS employee on February 3rd. He was moved from the Cherokee County office in Jacksonville to the Palestine, TX DPS office after the initial complaint. The Department of Public Safety is investigating the incident.

Nationwide:  March 15 through March 21 is National Sunshine Week. Sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, National Sunshine Week recognizes the importance of an open government and the public access of information.

Child porn, sex assault, aiding and abetting arrests of Cherokee County school faculty. Medical Board reprimands equal bad medicine.

This month: Lon Morris coach Barry Griffin pleads guilty in federal court of child porn possession and distribution in Cherokee County. Troup ISD coach fired for texting students; second Troup teacher arrested for hiding fugitive in classroom.  Rusk ISD nurse arrested for sexual assault and having an unlawful relationship with a student.

Any of this sound familiar? All this disgusting behavior in local schools during the last week of January 2009. This is why parents should think twice about relocating into this area and having their children attend Cherokee County schools, either private or public.

Lon Morris College golf coach Barry Dean Griffin faces ten years in federal prison and an unsympathetic US Attorney’s office in Tyler, TX.  According to the Tyler Paper

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Ann Cozby said the defendant’s sentencing guideline range could be enhanced because the child pornography involved children younger than 12, involved sadistic and masochistic material and involved more than 600 images.

Griffin is incarcerated pending his sentencing date. He was arrested last year after his Jacksonville, TX home was raided by a task force composed of the Longview TX police department and the Department of Justice. The Cherokee County District Attorney’s office and Lon Morris Board of Trustees were unavailable for comment.

Rebecca D. Blankinship a.k.a. the district nurse at Rusk ISD was charged with two felony counts of sexual misconduct with a student. “Becky” Turlington Blankinship, a recent Rusk High graduate, bailed out of Cherokee County jail on January 27, 2009 after posting two $25,000 felony bonds. In the vested interest of the little community, the Cherokee County District Attorney’s office did not release names or sordid details. Or to avoid embarrassing the Third Grade class taught by the offender’s mom? The district attorney always can be counted on to protect the local bridal shower committee, consisting of all the above and investigators’ wives. Especially in cases of incest or homo-erotism. Guess the field trip to the courthouse will be canceled this year.

In Troup, TX, the school district suffered a double blow last month with the resignation of a coach after text messages to a student were discovered. A teacher’s aide was arrested for hiding her wanted sister in a classroom. Again, names have been withheld to protect the guilty.

In 2005, Troup ISD coach Samuel “Tony” Sutton was arrested for sex assault on two female students which he originally denied. Sutton had worked for one year for Troup ISD and was hired by the current superintendent Marvin Beaty. DNA matches from Coach Sutton’s saliva were found in two students’ ears. Sutton faced additional and separate rape and aggravated assault charges in Smith County and was eventually sentenced to 35 years. Another black male pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years for participating in one of the sex assaults.

The mother of one of Sutton’s female victims spoke out about the hiring process of the Troup ISD, a process defended by the Troup ISD superintendent during the trial.  (Source KLTV)

In February 2006, Alto, TX ISD principal Charles Weeks was fired after six months on the job. The then Alto ISD superintendent Lawayne Sheffield “declined to release the reason for Charles Weeks’ termination.” Local newspapers followed suit, leaving room for speculation. (Source Daily Progress)

The Golden Rule : Lie through your teeth and get away with it.

The lesson to be learned from Cherokee County educational institutions is that this behavior is a direct result of the so-called highest legal authorities operating in Rusk, TX. District court bailiff Constable Randal Thompson was recorded by federal authorities during a drug sting threatening to kill any and everyone attempting to stop him from bringing drugs from the Mexican border into Cherokee County. Jacksonville police officer Larry Pugh dragged a federal witness into a van with a belt around her neck because she went to authorities after she was repeatedly raped by him at gunpoint. Other witnesses against the Jacksonville, TX police department have simply ‘vanished’ even after their remains have been found in neighboring counties.

Let’s not forget District Attorney Elmer Beckworth lying to State Legislators in 2005 on how he couldn’t rescind the bond of one Michael Harris, prior to Harris murdering his estranged wife Faye Bell Harris- not because Michael Harris was a drug snitch for Beckworth’s investigators and because Cherokee County never filed a protective order against Harris. No, it was because the Texas Constitution somehow would not allow Felony Bail revocation during escalating and repeated domestic violence. Similarly, Cherokee County CAN set the bail for parole violators such as Brandon Robertson, even though Robertson was stopped with a gun and crystal meth by the DPS. Is it any wonder respectable teachers are fleeing the county and resigning in droves? What about victims of domestic violence committed by members of the Rusk Chamber of Commerce? What about the men and women beaten up during the Tomato Bowl Riot of 2004 being put on trial- while the arresting officer / State Witness is sitting in a federal holding block on multiple Rape and Retaliation charges?

What about $25,000 being stolen from the post office in Alto, Texas by a US Post Master? What about the missing $150,000 stolen from the Rusk, Texas Water Department?

Outsiders begin to make sense why the smallest county in the area has the worst voter fraud and minority rights violations in the State. This is where sexual deviants, wife beaters and licensed professionals with multiple disciplinary actions can reside under the radar. It is a place where unlicensed police officers such as Michael Meissner can be hired to conduct surveillance on political enemies. And drunks, pedophiles and purveyors of child porn can participate in Elmer Beckworth’s jury pools. Many of these jury members have faced or are facing criminal charges themselves, unless they follow the district attorney’s lead. You can bet they are the best friend a prosecutor could ever have, because they will say and do just about anything to taint the entire judicial process. In Cherokee County, TX, that isn’t an understatement.

Elmer Beckworth and his former investigator Randy Hatch made good friends with a convicted felon who testified against soon to be executed death row inmates Richard Cobb and associate Buenka Adams. So good, they both wrote a letter to the convict’s parole officer and would’ve written the governor for a pardon if need be.  Another caveat Cherokee County newspapers wouldn’t dare share with its readers.

Cherokee County is a haven for those seeking a refuge from licensing authorities and willing to take a 200% cut in salary. If these “doctors, lawyers and such” play the game just right, they’ll be lauded for decades in the newspapers even though their professional degrees aren’t worth the paper they wipe with.

 

Let’s make a quick recap of Rusk, TX’s beloved medical professionals reprimanded and/or suspended by the Texas Board of Medical Examiners, yet given oodles of accolades by the Rusk Cherokeean Herald over the years:

• CALDWELL, TROY A. JR., M.D., Rusk, TX, Lic. #E8372
An Agreed Order was entered on 12-7-01 suspending the physician’s license; however, the suspension was stayed and the physician was placed on probation for five years under certain terms and conditions. Action due to nontherapeutic prescribing or treatment.

• PEYTON, JOHN C., M.D., Rusk, TX, Lic. #D5152
On November 30, 2007, the Board and Dr. Peyton entered into an Agreed Order publicly reprimanding Dr. Peyton, prohibiting him from having hospital privileges, and requiring that he take and pass the Medical Jurisprudence Examination; obtain eight hours of continuing medical education in medical record-keeping; and that he pay an administrative penalty of $500. The action was based on his failure to adequately attend to his hospital patients by making his daily rounds and responding to nursing pages for which he was subsequently disciplined by the hospital.

• MEHARRY, LEROY IRWIN, M.D., Umatilla, OR (formerly Rusk, TX), Lic. #F4955
On April 7, 2006, the Board and Dr. Meharry entered into an Agreed Order publicly reprimanding Dr. Meharry and requiring him to comply with all terms and conditions imposed by an Order of the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners. The action was based on the action of the Oregon Board in disciplining Dr. Meharry for issues relating to prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances to staff and family members without proper documentation and controls.

• MEHARRY, ROGER ALVIN, M.D., Austin , TX (formerly Rusk, TX), Lic. #E5172
Action Date: 08/17/1996
Description: 8-17-96: ORDER ENTERED GRANTING TERMINATION OF ORDER DATED 2-22-91. LICENSE IS FREE AND CLEAR OF ANY PREVIOUS RESTRICTIONS.

Action Date: 08/18/1995
Description: . 8-18-95: ORDER ENTERED GRANTING MODIFICATION OF ORDER DATED 2-22-91 AS FOLLOWS: REAPPLY FOR DEA & DPS CERTIFICATES.

Action Date: 08/19/1994
Description: AGREED ORDER 8-19-94 DR. MEHARRY’S PREVIOUS 1991 BOARD ORDER WAS EXTENDED FOR 2 YEARS. ACTION DUE TO UNPROFESSIONAL OR DIHONORABLE CONDUCT, AND PROFFESSIONAL FAILURE TO PRACTICE MEDICINE.

Action Date: 02/12/1993
Description: ORDER 2-12-93 REQUEST TO REAPPLY FOR CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES DENIED

Action Date: 06/17/1992
Description: AGREED ORDER 6-17-92 ALLEGED VIOLATION OF PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY GIVEN PUBLIC REPRIMAND.

Action Date: 01/22/1991
Description: ORDER 1-22-91 DUE TO ALLEGATIONS OF PRESCRIBING CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES TO KNOWN USERS, INSUFFICIENT DOCUMENTATION ON MEDICAL RECORDS, WRITING FALSE PRESCRIPTIONS. PROBATION FOR 5 YEARS. SHALL NOT PRESCRIBE NONTHERAPEUTICALLY. SHALL NOT PERMIT AN UNLICENSED PERSION TO TELEPHONE A PRESCRIPTION IN TO A PHARMACY. MAINTAIN A FILE OF PRESCRIPTIONS WRITTEN FOR CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE 2 WEEK PRECEPTORSHIP TO BE COMPLETED WITHIN 12 MOS. MAINTAIN ADEQUATE MEDICAL RECORDS. 50 HRS. CME PER YEAR. SHALL APPEAR TWICE ANNUALLY BEFORE THE BOARD.

(Source Texas Board of Medical Examiners)

Blue hairs steal another election. “Jessica’s Law” 18 months later.

Texas House of Representatives District 11:

Voter fraud is a crime against our most sacred rights as Americans. In Cherokee County incumbents can rely on benign looking old ladies volunteering at the voting booth to falsify election results in their favor. Their job is to pervert the outcome of every election, no matter how inconsequential the political position. They’ve been doing it for decades and it is the same type of blue-haired biddies every election cycle. However, when they defraud the outcomes of Congressional elections, results affect the entire State.

Another election in the crapper thanks to Cherokee County voter fraud. That’s their track record and we’ve been reading about it since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson. Apparently ballot voting in this region is tongue-in-cheek and the Attorney General’s office is complacent with election results. As an added bonus, elected officials quickly register bogus ballot counts and the local media reports the counterfeit results before the Secretary of State can certify the election. Even in the age of mandatory electronic voting.

Terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah harbor their rogue activities from reprisal by sheltering them within houses of worship and schools. They know public opinion will be in their favor by stationing themselves within these sanctuaries and they are free to conduct their assault on Freedom. Similarly, the Cherokee County Commissioner’s Court, County Judge, et al have chosen the community churches as the best places in which to conduct voter fraud while cloaked behind the facade of presumed benevolent and guileless environments.

 

(Source: Cherokee County Commissioners Court October 14, 2008 meeting)

Published Cherokee County, TX polling locations by precinct on the county Public Meeting Notice:

#10, Northeast, Rusk Civic Center
#11, East Rusk, Blount Chapel Baptist Church
#12, North Rusk, Gallatin Community Center
#13, North Maydelle, First Baptist Church
#14, Southeast Jacksonville, Corinth Baptist Church
#15, Ward #3 City of Jacksonville, Tyler St. Baptist Church
#16, Dialville, Dialville Methodist Church
#23, South Rusk, Salem Baptist Church Hwy 241
#24, Rusk, Cherokee Civic Theater in Shriner Bldg/5th St.
#25, Wells,City Fire Station
#26, East Alto, Calvery Tabernacle United Pentecostal Church
#27, West Alto, City Fire Station Hwy 21
#28, South Maydelle, Assembly of God Church
#29, Forest Baptist Church
#32, Mt.Selman Baptist Church
#33, Reese Community Center, Hwy. 175
#34, Mixon First Baptist Church
#35, Cove Springs Baptist Church, Hwy 175
#36, S W Jacksonville, New Hope Baptist Church FM 747
#37, Mt. Haven CME Church
#38, Ward #2, City of Jacksonville Activity Center Peoples Street
#42, Ward #1, City of Jacksonville Old Elberta St. School
#43, Ward #4, City of Jacksonville Public Library
#44, Northeast Jacksonville Tecula Baptist Fellowship Hall
#45, New Summerfield First Baptist Church
#46, Pleasant Hill Blackjack Baptist Church
#47, Ponta First Baptist Hwy 110
#48, Concord Presbyterian Church, CR 4705 FM 856

Like a fundamentalist terrorist, these seemingly gentle old church moms would cut your head off as soon as your back was turned. They are the backbone of the culture of corruption and they volunteer their time to keep their kith and kin in office. When the biddies aren’t busy listening in on private phone conversations for the district attorney’s office, they’re stuffing ballot boxes and filling out fake provisional voter registration cards. And tossing out challengers’ votes as fast as shucking peas.

Incumbent State Representative and Jacksonville, TX resident Chuck Hopson (D) ‘won’ the November 4th Texas House District 11 race by this same tried and true technique. Hopson’s opponent challenged the results and requested a supervised recount. A senior citizen election official squeaked out an extra 104 votes during the December recount and Cherokee County’s incumbent State Representative was sent back to Austin for another term. Chuck Hopson, a conservative Democrat and honorable politician in his own right defends the blatant voter fraud and corrupt election process from his hometown district. Texas House District 11 is composed of Henderson, Panola, Houston and Cherokee County. Hopson’s challenger was Republican Brian Walker of Panola County, TX.

 

TX HD 11

 

On election night and after a “recount,” Rep. Hopson’s home district in Jacksonville, Texas – Precinct 36, or “Box 36,”provided the 100 + fraudulent votes needed to save his seat. Challenger Brian Walker had been ahead of Hopson on election night, until Box 36 came strolling in three hours after the polling booths closed, giving Hopson the votes to remain in office. Polling place No. 36 is located in on FM 747 in South West Jacksonville at the New Hope Baptist Church. Go figure.

Because the blatant mislabeling of ballot boxes was being questioned by the Walker campaign, the Cherokee County Commissioner’s Court rushed to form a canvas board of local relatives of the election judges.

Candidate Brian Walker petitioned the Texas House of Representatives for a recount and an investigation. Walker’s formal request contends Cherokee County acted in violation of Texas electoral procedures and allowed fraudulent provisional votes to be cast for the incumbent. At the same time, other votes in his favor were tampered with and/or discarded. The bulk of tossed out votes were overseas ballots of service men and women with legal residency in Cherokee County. Before the Texas House of Representatives convened to hear the petition, Walker withdrew his request for a formal hearing.

Brian Walker contested the certification of the election that Cherokee County is in violation of the Texas Election Code. These are election laws broken by election officials:

NUMBER ONE:   900 cast votes, enough to swing the close election, were never properly sealed nor locked once Cherokee County was notified of a recount. These ballot boxes remained with members of the Hopson camp until they were subpoenaed.

ELECTION CODE

TITLE 6. CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS

CHAPTER 66. DISPOSITION OF RECORDS AND SUPPLIES AFTER ELECTION

Sec. 66.058. PRESERVATION OF PRECINCT ELECTION RECORDS.

(a) Except as otherwise provided by this code, the precinct election records shall be preserved by the authority to whom they are distributed for at least 22 months after election day.
(b) For a period of at least 60 days after the date of the election, the voted ballots shall be preserved securely in a locked room in the locked ballot box in which they are delivered to the general custodian of election records. On the 61st day after election day, the general custodian of election records may:
(1) require a person who has possession of a key that operates the lock on a ballot box containing voted ballots to return the key to the custodian; and
(2) unlock the ballot box and transfer the voted ballots to another secure container for the remainder of the preservation period.
(b-1) Except as permitted by this code, a ballot box or other secure container containing voted ballots may not be opened during the preservation period.
(c) If during the preservation period an authorized entry is made into a ballot box or other secure container containing voted ballots, when the purpose for the entry is fulfilled, the box or container shall be relocked or resecured, and the box and key or secure container returned to the custodian.
(d) A custodian of a ballot box or secure container containing voted ballots commits an offense if, during the preservation period prescribed by Subsection (a), the custodian:
(1) makes an unauthorized entry into the box or container; or
(2) fails to prevent another person from handling the box or container in an unauthorized manner or from making an unauthorized entry into the box or container.
(e) An offense under Subsection (d) is a Class A misdemeanor.
(f) The records in ballot box no. 4 may be preserved in that box or by any other method chosen by the custodian. If the records are removed from the box, they may not be commingled with any other election records kept by the custodian.
(g) Repealed by Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1197, Sec. 2, eff. June 15, 2007.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986. Amended by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1078, Sec. 18, eff. Sept. 1, 1997; Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 1315, Sec. 40, eff. Jan. 1, 2004.
Amended by:
Acts 2005, 79th Leg., Ch. 950, Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2005.
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1197, Sec. 1, eff. June 15, 2007.
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 1197, Sec. 2, eff. June 15, 2007.

NUMBER TWO:  The election judge of Representative Hopson’s home district was not appointed in accordance to the Texas Election Code; rather she is a Chuck Hopson “volunteer.” This election judge was not on the roster authorized by the Cherokee County Commissioner’s Court.

ELECTION CODE

TITLE 3. ELECTION OFFICERS AND OBSERVERS

CHAPTER 32. ELECTION JUDGES AND CLERKS

SUBCHAPTER A. APPOINTMENT OF ELECTION JUDGES

Sec. 32.001. PRESIDING JUDGE AND ALTERNATE FOR EACH ELECTION PRECINCT. (a) A presiding election judge and an alternate presiding judge shall be appointed for each election precinct in which an election is held.
(b) The alternate presiding judge shall serve as presiding judge for an election if the regularly appointed presiding judge cannot serve.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986.

Sec. 32.002. JUDGES FOR COUNTY ELECTION. (a) The commissioners court at its July term shall appoint the election judges for each regular county election precinct.
(b) Judges appointed under Subsection (a) serve for a term of one year beginning on August 1 following the appointment, except that the commissioners court by order recorded in its minutes may provide for a term of two years.
(c) The presiding judge and alternate presiding judge must be affiliated or aligned with different political parties, subject to this subsection. Before July of each year, the county chair of a political party whose candidate for governor received the highest or second highest number of votes in the county in the most recent gubernatorial general election shall submit in writing to the commissioners court a list of names of persons in order of preference for each precinct who are eligible for appointment as an election judge. The county chair may supplement the list of names of persons until the 20th day before a general election or the 15th day before a special election in case an appointed election judge becomes unable to serve. The commissioners court shall appoint the first person meeting the applicable eligibility requirements from the list submitted in compliance with this subsection by the party with the highest number of votes in the precinct as the presiding judge and the first person meeting the applicable eligibility requirements from the list submitted in compliance with this subsection by the party with the second highest number of votes in the precinct as the alternate presiding judge. The commissioners court may reject the list if the persons whose names are submitted on the list are determined not to meet the applicable eligibility requirements.
(d) The county clerk, after making a reasonable effort to consult with the party chair of the appropriate political party or parties, shall submit to the commissioners court a list of names of persons eligible for appointment as presiding judge and alternate presiding judge for each precinct in which an appointment is not made under Subsection (c). The commissioners court shall appoint an eligible person from the list who is affiliated or aligned with the appropriate party, if available.
(e) The commissioners court shall fill a vacancy in the position of presiding judge or alternate presiding judge for the remainder of the unexpired term. An appointment to fill a vacancy may be made at any regular or special term of court. Not later than 48 hours after the county clerk becomes aware of a vacancy, the county clerk shall notify the county chair of the same political party with which the original judge was affiliated or aligned of the vacancy. Not later than the fifth day after the date of notification of the vacancy, the county chair of the same political party with which the original judge was affiliated or aligned shall submit to the commissioners court in writing the name of a person who is eligible for the appointment. If a name is submitted in compliance with this subsection, the commissioners court shall appoint that person to the unexpired term. If a name is not submitted in compliance with this subsection, the county clerk shall submit to the commissioners court a list of names of persons eligible as an appointee for the unexpired term. The commissioners court shall appoint an eligible person from the list who is affiliated or aligned with the same party, if available.
(f) Subject to Section 32.003, the judges appointed under this section shall serve in each election ordered by the governor or a county authority in which the regular county election precincts are required to be used.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986. Amended by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1349, Sec. 8, 9, eff. Sept. 1, 1997; Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1009, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.
Amended by:
Acts 2005, 79th Leg., Ch. 89, Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2005.

NUMBER THREE:  Of all the electronic and more accurate voting machines, Hopson’s home precinct relied on paper ballots, based upon a “malfunction” that was never reported. In typical Cherokee County fashion, polling places allowed bystanders access to ballot boxes, while feigning a ‘friendly good old fashion’ political setting. Cherokee County remains off the map as county officials will not allow the Texas Election Administration Management (TEAM) system access to its fraudulent votes. Cherokee County prefers to remain in the dark ages instead of implementing a secure computerized voter management system. They get a kick out of submitting falsified voter returns.

ELECTION CODE

TITLE 13. RECOUNTS

CHAPTER 214. COUNTING PROCEDURES

SUBCHAPTER A. MANUALLY COUNTED BALLOTS
Sec. 214.046. TEST OF PROGRAM AND EQUIPMENT. (a) After the time set for beginning an electronic recount but before the recount is made, the recount tabulator shall conduct a test of the program and equipment in the same manner as the test that is conducted immediately before an original count of ballots for an election. Each person entitled to notice of the recount or the person’s representative at the recount is entitled to examine the program and the test materials on request.
(b) If the test is unsuccessful, the recount tabulator shall notify the recount committee chair, who shall notify the recount supervisor, and the supervisor shall investigate the cause of the test’s failure. The electronic recount may not proceed until a test is successful on the equipment used for the first test or on other equipment selected by the supervisor.
(c) If the recount supervisor determines that the program is defective, the supervisor shall inform the person requesting the recount or the person’s agent. The person requesting the recount may notify the supervisor:
(1) to have the ballots recounted manually; or
(2) to attempt to correct the program so that an electronic recount may be conducted with the corrected program.
(d) A recount using a corrected program may not be made unless the tabulation supervisor of the central counting station or the presiding election judge of the polling place at which the ballots were counted, as applicable, and the person who prepared the program sign a written statement indicating that the original program is defective. If the statement cannot be obtained, the recount supervisor shall have the ballots recounted manually.
(e) If a recount using a corrected program is to be made, the original program shall be preserved without change and a complete new program shall be prepared. The original set of test materials shall also be preserved without change and a complete new set shall be prepared if the original set is unsuitable for testing the corrected program.
(f) The recount supervisor shall obtain from the person who prepares a new program a signed statement that the program was prepared by the person, with the date of preparation and the person’s address shown on the statement. The new program, the preparer’s statement, and the test materials used for verification shall be preserved in a sealed container in the same manner and for the same period as the original program.
(g) The costs of a recount under Subsection (c) may not be assessed against a person regardless of its outcome. If other precincts are included in the same recount document, the assessment of the costs in the other precincts shall be determined by the overall outcome in all precincts included in the document.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986. Amended by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 864, Sec. 224, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.

NUMBER FOUR:  On election night November 2nd, the ballot box from Rep. Hopsons’ home precinct arrived at the courthouse at 9:45 pm – nearly three hours after the polls had closed. This voting precinct is twenty minutes from the courthouse in downtown Rusk, TX. The election judge gave different accounts of why she was late for vote tally.

NUMBER FIVE: The ballot box from Rep. Hopson’s home voting precinct, as well as others throughout Cherokee County, was a plain cardboard box, not a padlocked metal container as required by Code. After election night and prior to the physical recount, all boxes’ seals had been removed and tampered with.

NUMBER SIX:  Cherokee County, TX refused software tests and calibration of its voting machines prior to the December recount.

NUMBER SEVEN:  Rejected ballots were never provided for scrutiny.

NUMBER EIGHT:  Every ballot register the County Clerk certified was falsified; all 31 voting precincts in Cherokee County had different totals certified than were actually serialized on the boxes. Many precincts failed to record the actual amount tallied on election night on the ballot boxes.

NUMBER NINE:  Cherokee County election officials added votes during the recount computation that were never matched nor reported. Voters from outside House District 11 were allowed to cast their secret ballots. Ballot registers have never been made available to the Walker campaign. Nonetheless, Walker withdrew his petition.

Brian Walker conceded to Chuck Hopson on December 22, 2008 but told the Tyler Paper his investigation of voter fraud in Cherokee County would continue. The Secretary of State would have to throw out the last 50 years of elections in Cherokee County if that were the case. The Texas legislature is currently divided by party lines at a close 76/74. The political melee of contesting what the Speaker of the House must view as an insignificant House seat would bring Cherokee County out of the dark and into the sunlight. Apparently nobody can stomach the rats and roaches scrambling in the slime when the eyes of the State are on them. The legacy of Cherokee County providing falsified information about its systemic corruption continues. The only question is whether or not the Attorney General’s office is going to certify it.

The alternate Universe of Cherokee County, TX newspapers:

Sensing the coast is clear from an Attorney General’s investigation into the stolen election, the Rusk, Texas Cherokeean Herald rubs the victory of their chosen incumbent in the face of the Brian Walker campaign. The daughter of the editor compares Republican Brian Walker to the “Wizard of Oz” and chastises him for not responding to the newspaper’s phone call interviews during the recount.

Beginning the day of the Nov. 4 General Election and continuing until last week, Mr. Walker and his staff have dodged more than 25 calls from the Cherokeean Herald.

With every twist and turn down this yellow brick road, the Cherokeean Herald attempted to call Mr. Walker for reaction to basic questions.

In contrast, the lines of communication with state Rep. Chuck Hopson (D-Jacksonville) and state Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) have always been prompt, even if their staff had to research a question.

If the Wizard of Oz isn’t available to take calls, does anyone have the cell phone number for the guy in the control booth pushing the buttons?

The fact is the Brian Walker campaign did not have Mr. Walker’s grandmother operating as an election judge in Cherokee County. Mr. Walker did not have operatives working as election judges in swing precincts. The only county with the ongoing history of voter fraud and stolen elections is the hometown of the Cherokeean Herald. The only county embroiled in a contested election is the Herald’s.

Mr. Walker is smart enough to smell the corruption of a stolen election and equally astute enough not to give interviews to the enemy. Furthermore, the Cherokeean Herald has a 30-year track record of making up fictitious stories for print, without any fact checking by an outside entity. The Cherokeean Herald will not report on the federal crimes of its law enforcement, Post Office employees or kinfolks. Certainly Brian Walker and associates have found a good use for the Rusk, Texas newspaper-  lining litter boxes and bird cages. The fact is the editor’s hometown Pravda, the Cherokeean Herald, has an eerie resemblance to Nazi propaganda fast forwarded to the present.

County officials quick to certify the voter fraud understood what type of scrutiny they would be exposed to with a Brian Walker victory. The Cherokeean Herald has been unabashedly in support of the Chuck Hopson reelection since the March 2007 primaries. And constantly deflecting the reality of resident child molesters on probation and living amongst them. Probation given to them by Cherokee County’s Elmer Beckworth and the district courts lazily pushing offenders through the docket.

To his credit, State Representative Chuck Hopson (D) introduced legislation in 2005 that would prevent convicted sex offenders receiving State subsidized erection enhancement drugs. Other legislation on the books for Federal Prosecutors includes the Adam Walsh Act, in 18 United States Code 2250, making it a federal crime for sex offenders to travel across state lines and fail to register. More recently is Jessica’s Law, ignored by Cherokee County, TX prosecutors unless it gets a blurb in the paper or the defendant isn’t a blood-relative.

Rusk, Texas:

After 18 months of Jessica’s Law being the law of the land and after decades of legal precedent, Cherokee County prosecutors decide that ongoing incestuous relations are illegal, but only to offenders they haven’t placed on the next jury pool. Jessica’s Law, introduced as House Bill 8 in Texas, became law on September 1, 2007. Under the provisions of HB 8, legislators proposed a 25 year minimum sentence for first time offenders convicted of child molestation. Dual legislation also created a new offense called “Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Young Child.” Jessica’s Law has proven to be an effective weapon for prosecutors willing to prosecute Indecency with Minor charges known to have been ongoing. It was designed to be used in every case a sex offense against a child occurs; the law’s origin was not created to be used at the discretion of small town district attorneys trying to get their names in the paper. Children in Cherokee County, TX have been continually abused physically and sexually for decades. The local media helps cover this up. Hence after a year and half of Jessica’s Law being on the books, Cherokee County finally comes out the dark ages.

A quick check of the local newspapers archives of the last 18 months shows only a few cases of unlawful acts with children get prosecuted to the fullest extent of Jessica’s Law. In a recent Tyler Paper interview, the Cherokee County District Attorney office boasts the December 10, 2008 conviction of George Henry Williams, Jr. Of course, Williams is not directly related to anyone in the Rusk, TX courthouse.

Like his forefathers and those shielding his conduct, Williams engaged in a continuous incestuous relationship with a 5-year old girl. Prosecutors declined to describe the family connection between Williams and the victim. Had Williams been related to officers of the court, the victim’s story of ongoing assault would have been buried and Jacksonville-based reporters would have written about how great a guy George Williams is to hang out with at the local eatery. Or perhaps thrown his name in as a victim of recent car burglaries. George Williams was arrested on February 3, 2008.

The same District Attorney’s office has instructed their Jacksonville , TX based reporters to ignore the last 18 months the law was in existence. The fact is “Jessica’s Law” has been ignored until someone not related to elected officials arrived on the docket. Anti-pedophile legislation on the books for decades has been available for Texas based district attorneys competent enough to utilize it, without politicizing the crime. HB 8 became the law of the land in 2007, but in the meantime 99 % of the sex offenses in Cherokee County, Texas have been prosecuted as Misdemeanors.

Earlier in May 2008, Jacksonville, Texas resident Glenn R. Wingard (arrested the same day as George Williams) was sentenced to 95 years for aggravated sexual assault of a child. Wingard was arrested one year after the assaults occurred and before Jessica’s Law was enacted. In January, 2008 Rusk, Texas resident Gordon Neal Mathis was sentenced to over 40 years for aggravated sexual assault of a child. That’s it; 3 offenses prosecuted out of the dozens of sex assault cases reported in the Jacksonville Daily Progress since Jessica’s Law became law.

Therefore there has been nothing stopping Cherokee County prosecutors from putting sex offenders on trial other than (1.) the embarrassment of rampant incest throughout the county; and (2.) the embarrassment of prosecuting their previous jury members.

In November 2008 alone, The Jacksonville Daily Progress reported on their back pages the summertime plea bargains of several resident Cherokee County child sex offenders (complete with deliberately misspelled names). These guys received deals not prosecuted under Jessica’s Law:

• Thomas Elledge [sic], sexual assault of a child. The plea agreement was for four years in prison; and
• Justin Paul, aggravated sexual assault of a child. The plea agreement was for eight years in prison.

Not the minimum 25 years established under Jessica’s Law.

Rusk, Texas resident and registered sex offender Kevin Lyn Hawes, age 45, was sentenced to 70 years confinement in November 2008 for violating the terms of his probation. Deferred adjudicated probation given to him by District Attorney Elmer Beckworth in 1999, before the invention of the Internet was discovered in Cherokee County. Hawes was arrested in 1998 for attempted sex assault of a 15-year old female. The terms of his 10-year probation sentence included Community Service and not having sleepovers with little kids, both conditions Hawes violated. They pulled straws in the judge’s chambers and decided Kevin Hawes needed to be made the sacrificial lamb. Hawes was less than a year from release from Adult Supervison, i.e. probation.

Kevin Lyn Hawes, registered sex offender

Kevin Hawes tried to date rape a 15-year old Rusk, TX girl; Jessica Law would not apply to his case. The fact is the teen testified against Hawes and her deposition resulted in his conviction. The Jacksonville Daily Progress reports the Hawes case as if it were in fact a sex crime involving a child much younger, who was unwilling to testify. Hawes probation violations are not prosecutable under Jessica’s Law. As a matter of fact, Kevin Hawes’ probation revocation has absolutely nothing to do with “Jessica’s Law.” The Jacksonville Daily Progress would choose their readers to believe otherwise.

And Cherokee County’s Elmer Beckworth continues the lie implied in the article:

Like many cases that deal with victims of this age, many times the victim is unwilling to testify, leading to these cases being dismissed or getting a plea. Thanks to recent changes in the law and more children’s advocacy programs, we’re seeing more and more victims get counseling and are able to testify.

Again, the fact is the 15-year old victim Kevin Hawes attempted to have underage sex with did in fact testify against him. And Hawes’ probation violations have nothing to do with Elmer Beckworth’s track record of offering probation to resident Cherokee County sex offenders. God help them if these defendants aren’t related to anybody working in the Rusk, Texas courthouse. Kevin Lyn Hawes is currently (as of January 2009) incarcerated in the Cherokee County jail awaiting transport to TDCJ.

Cherokee County prosecutors have a proven track record of lying about their own cases, often just for the sake of diverting attention away from their cronyism. Sometimes they lie just for the ego trip of remaining unchallenged by the local media and in local elections. It keeps the Cult of Confession in check. Not only is Cherokee County steeped in voter fraud, it is immersed in one of the longest ongoing Criminal Court con games in Texas history. This history will be discussed in detail in the coming months along with the upcoming retirement of Criminal Court of Appeals Justice Charles Holcomb. As Cherokee County’s highest ranking State Bar member, Justice Holcomb is mentor to several of Cherokee County’s current swear-ins.

Who will the Governor choose to replace Cherokee County’s favorite son as Justice on what has been called the worst criminal appeals court in the United States? Place 8’s appellate Justice won’t have to rely on voter fraud to be seated- he or she will get to be appointed by Rick Perry.

Robert Fox in jail but not the news. County Attorney blames victims for domestic violence.

Jacksonville, Texas:

They’ve called him a “terrorist sympathizer.” They say he has ties to “American Taliban” Johnny Walker Lindh and federal building bomber/mass murderer Timothy McVeigh. They said he set up shop at the House of Israel in downtown Jacksonville, Texas for the sole purpose of irritating the district attorney while bringing down the government. They said he was the focus of a “nationwide manhunt” by Homeland Security. They said he was a ticking time bomb and his brainwashed Republic of Texas followers were a threat to our God fearin’ democratic way of life. But when Robert Fox appeared on the Cherokee County courthouse steps with his supporters, his arrest never made the Daily Progress or Rusk Cherokeean. Fox responded last week to a 9:00 am court summons and was quietly escorted away by Jacksonville detectives. All this after being labeled by the Jacksonville, Texas Chief of Police as a “Wanted Fugitive” and still at large.

Only the Tyler Morning News had the professional common sense to share with its readers 100 miles away that this ‘threat to national security’ had been captured- simply because he answered his summons.

No headlines in the Jacksonville paper proudly announcing the news:
“House of Israel leader Robert Fox arrested on December 5, 2008 at Cherokee County courthouse in Rusk, Texas.”

There are no local accounts of the arrest being published because Fox apparently obeyed his court summons to appear for his barratry and evading arrest charges. Feral pigs warrant local headlines but not the arrest of the Jacksonville Police Department’s so-called “lightning rod” of terrorist activity.

Robert Fox (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress)

 

An always disheveled Robert Fox, age 59, is in Cherokee County jail on a $30,000 bond.  According to KETK Channel 56 and other news sources, Fox surrendered peacefully. However, Jacksonville PD detective Jason Price told the Tyler Morning News that Fox “did not cooperate whatsoever” during his December 5, 2008 arrest. The fact is the local newspapers have been told to pretend they now know nothing about the case, so the presiding judge can also pretend the media has not already poisoned Fox’s hand-picked jury members to be. Remember the Jacksonville Daily Progress front page headlines and attention grabbers during the ‘hog dog fightin’ days of summer’?:

• JPD arrests federal fugitive-Tuesday, April 08, 2008
• JPD nabs fed fugitive claiming affiliation with Republic of Texas- Wednesday, April 09, 2008
• State fugitive nabbed, large cache of illegal drugs found inside House of Israel building- Sunday, May 18, 2008
• House of Israel leader says he didn’t know drugs were there-Tuesday, May 20, 2008
• House of Israel’s Robert Fox arrested-Thursday, May 22, 2008
• Police say financial documents may show more evidence of illegality by House of Israel’s Fox- Saturday, May 24, 2008
• BREAKING NEWS: Third search warrant in a month puts Fox back in jail -Thursday, June 12, 2008
• JPD files felony warrant against House of Israel’s Fox- Saturday, July 26, 2008

But no reports of the arrest and end to the manhunt of Robert Fox for potential jurors to read about. If it’s news 100 miles away, then why isn’t it news for the only two newspapers in the county? Fox faces a specially selected jury pool of relatives of investigating officers, etc. because untainted juries are nonexistent in Cherokee County.

Any change of venue of the Robert Fox case will be argued as inconsequential. If the population can’t read, how can the court expect the trial jury to have any prejudicial pre-opinions of the Fox case despite the massive newspaper propaganda campaign against him? Besides, a cousin or two wouldn’t lie during voir dire to keep themselves planted in the jury box. Not in God’s Country.

In July 2008, Jacksonville Police Detective Jason Price held a press conference to detail how his “investigation had uncovered connections between Fox and known terrorists.” Actually the Jacksonville Police Department’s raid on the House of Israel halfway house on a Class C Misdemeanor charge led to the discovery of Fox’s political writings. Expired Oxycontin was found horded away in the Fox compound. In any other venue the man’s political dribble would be inadmissible and the mention of his personal effects would be unconstitutional.

Cherokee County chose to hype the escalating raids of the House of Israel and win the local public opinion after violating the Civil Rights of its citizenry. Want to bet the House of Israel phone lines were diverted off Main Street and Fox’s conversations were being illegally tape recorded somewhere? Hence the heightened yet fictitious need for the Jacksonville Police Department to go to DEFCOM 5.

Jacksonville PD press conference (Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress)

 

Police avoided calling Fox violent but Chief Reece Daniel called the man a dangerous individual.

“Timothy McVeigh was the lightning,” Daniel said. “People like Robert Fox are the lightning rods that convince others to bomb buildings.”

Other East Texas media followed suit with news articles claiming Fox’s terroristic leanings.

(Source: House Of Israel Leader Has Taliban Links; Draws McVeigh Comparisons- July 25, 2008)

“JACKSONVILLE, TX (EAST TEXAS NEWS)- He’s the ringleader of an anti-government group, caught here in East Texas. Now he’s been linked to a major terrorist organization – the Taliban.”

Tyler, TX based Channel 19 repeats the Jacksonville Police Department’s claim that the indigent Robert Fox is a “dangerous individual” who was also wanted in Canada and Missouri.

(Source: House of Israel Ties to the Taliban?- July 25, 2008)

“[Jacksonville Police Detective Jason] Price said his department has solicited for assistance from the federal government. “But to this point we’ve gotten a lukewarm response,” he said.

They hope that will change. Before this possible link to terrorism, turns to acts of terrorism.

If that is the case, then why didn’t the hometown Jacksonville, Texas newspaper report that the “dangerous” Robert Fox is now sitting in the Cherokee County jail of his own volition? Why haven’t they continued their propaganda campaign ad absurdum? Because they have collectively violated the rights of a harmless blowhard and given him exactly what he wanted- another federal lawsuit to clog up the court system.

Footnote: Robert James Fox posted $30,000 bond and was released from Cherokee County jail on December 20, 2008. Still no reports from the local media.

Distraction results in successful propagandizing, no matter how absurd, e.g. naming Robert Fox as a link to terrorists based upon immaterial and inadmissible ‘evidence.’ This is what attorneys from out of the region should be prepared for when they argue cases in front of stacked Cherokee County juries. Cherokee County’s district judges allow the argument of “beliefs” instead of facts. Ten years ago they would have called Robert Fox a satanist. Twenty years ago they would called him a communist. Thirty years ago they would have called him a Vietnam deserter. The Cherokee County district attorney relies on the local newspaper to propagate this type of illegal smear campaign. Because Fox is indigent he will not be allowed to question or challenge these absurd accusations. The court simply will obstruct his defense. They certainly won’t allow the naming of opposing members of counsel and court officers as witnesses, even if everybody is first cousins and carpool to the courthouse. And the Defense can expect their confidential attorney/client phone conversations to be intercepted and played for the District Attorney’s office.

Rusk, Texas:   Warning, all roads lead to stupidity.

Everyone knows the small town media can help shape negative beliefs as much as positive ones. When Rusk Chamber of Commerce members are arrested for domestic violence, the formula remains the same: divert attention away by focusing it on someone not part of the Good Ol’ Boy system. Analytical thinking is prohibited.

The strangest news story probably ever published in the Jacksonville Daily Progress appeared last month. An article titled “local man found guilty of assault despite victim dropping charges” attempts to explain the first legal precedent of its kind in Cherokee County history, the prosecution of domestic violence after the victim recants her story. Or perhaps to validate why Protective Orders in Cherokee County only apply to men like the one mentioned in the article, and not to those who advertise in the Daily Progress.

The naïve reporter of this tripe begins:
(Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress, November 8, 2008)

In what amounts to a fairly uncommon legal occurrence, the Cherokee County Attorney’s office prosecuted a Rusk man for misdemeanor assault/family violence last week despite the victim’s desire to drop the charges.

Taking their lessons from the Cherokee County District Attorney and Law School 101, local reporters follow the Chapter in Negative Logic. Remember it’s always someone else’s fault, so blame the victim. An innocent defendant can’t prove a negative, i.e. something that never happened nor be proven to have happened. Therefore any lie is permissible and admissible and should never be questioned.

Lesson One- a defendant can’t prove a negative when the judge allows a criminal case to be tried based on the preponderance of the ‘evidence.’ Especially falsified evidence and when law enforcement is allowed to perjure. Or the judge ignores the cousins of the Plaintiff being planted on the jury. As a matter of fact, the more absurd the District Attorney’s concoction and the more State witnesses lie on the stand, the better. It reaffirms what jury members have been fed prior to the vetting process and makes for fine entertainment for everyone involved. And remember the pool of potential jury members in Cherokee County, Texas is less than fifty.

The prosecutorial example always has to be made on the lone destitute defendant arrested for slapping his girlfriend. Not on the local businessmen arrested repeatedly for family violence- and whose cases are dismissed before the Bondsman posts bail. The County Attorney’s office has also found the need to justify the lack of effort prosecuting their constituent wife beaters backlogging the docket. Drunken habitual wife beaters who actually make the cut are reported as Misdemeanor Only offenders, because all the other arrestees simply will not be prosecuted if they are related to officers of the court. The more recent and more provocative beatings are swept under the carpet while those cases postponed for years are brought to the forefront, to shunt scrutiny from recent offenses.

In the above mentioned article, the Cherokee County Attorney’s office continues the lie that Police Reports from the arresting officer are nonexistent and a criminal prosecution of assault depends solely on the continual cooperation of the victim. They promise there will be serious consequences for every S.O.B., not related to the District Attorney Investigator like Gary Helm, caught beating up their significant other.

Assistant County Attorney Kelley Peacock said misdemeanor assault cases virtually never go to trial without the willing participation of the victim, but she said the circumstances of this case convinced the state to pick up charges. Helm was arrested Aug. 25, 2007, after reportedly punching the female victim multiple times in the face.

So begins the lie. In Cherokee County the written report and sworn affividavit of a sheriff deputy dispatched to the scene of the disturbance is not good enough to prosecute family violence? Even when the offender refuses to identify himself to the arresting officer? The Assistant County Attorney continues by describing the mindset of the Cherokee County juror faced with convicting a member of the District Court’s inner circle for Bodily Injury.

“There were members of the jury panel who said they wouldn’t convict a person, even if I proved beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed assault, if the victim didn’t want the defendant to be prosecuted. I feel like this is a problem in our community,” she said.

It is distressing to her how frequently victims of abuse will file charges, decide to return to their batterer and then drop the charges.

There is no mention of any silly little Protective Orders being violated by these repeat offenders because Cherokee County won’t issue any embarrassing paper trail for their buddies. It is not because the female “victims choose to protect their attackers by refusing to pursue charges” as the County Attorney’s office propaganda piece contends. It is because the County Attorney will not pursue criminal charges whatsoever on the family members of those with close ties to the Cherokee County District Attorney. Comments on this blog and links to pictures of local battered women prove that even with broken bones, bruises and knocked out teeth, the district attorney’s office, et al refuses to prosecute their buddies for domestic violence.

It is the prosecutor, not the victim, who makes the decision to move forward with formal charges. If there is sufficient evidence of domestic abuse then the prosecutor is mandated by law to file charges, even when the victim is pressured to change her story. The State is also required to issue orders of protection upon the petition of the victim; protection orders are enforceable across state lines according to federal law. The County Attorney’s office can issue a temporary ex parte order of non-contact FIRST, prior to a formal hearing or even notifying the accused. Apparently that doesn’t happen very often in Cherokee County. The Daily Progress is trying to Fool ‘Em All Again.

The County Attorney’s office continues the lament:

“cases in which the victim makes a claim of abuse and then recants it are a waste of taxpayers’ money because such claims result in law enforcement and state prosecutors wasting time, money and effort investigating a crime that is eventually dropped and never makes it to trial.”

The only waste of taxpayer money is the dispatch of Cherokee County Sheriff’s Deputy to a known wife beater’s home to investigate a domestic disturbance call, booking and arraigning the guy, setting bond and then having the charges dismissed before the abuser’s name hits the newspapers. It is the cover up that is a waste of taxpayers’ money. The crime never goes to trial because the County Attorney’s office drops the charges. Typically, Cherokee County would rather blame the victim.

The article concludes it contradictory misinformation:

“the message needs to be sent that the decision on whether a case will be tried is not just based on the wishes of the victim. As far as the state is concerned, if the evidence is there, we are going to prosecute the case.”

And if there aren’t any victims as in the Robert Fox/House of Israel case, then what? How can you say you are prosecuting domestic violence when you drop the charges on 99% of the offenders? And cover up the fact that you embolden them to keep kicking their wives around because you simultaneously call the same closet wife beaters for jury duty?

The fact is jurisdictions outside the Good Ol’ Boy network routinely prosecute domestic violence without the help of the forgiving victim. Family violence charges can be either a felony or a misdemeanor. Repeat offenders in Cherokee County never have to face the more serious felony charges when the abuse cases are wrongfully delayed or ignored all together by the court system. Domestic Violence is a serious crime and other counties outside Cherokee County aggressively prosecute spousal abuse to fullest extent of the law. And they are proud of it. The newspapers in these areas, such as Tyler, Houston and Dallas, educate the public in the seriousness of domestic violence instead of whitewashing the problem.

The local Cherokee County media wants everyone to ‘feel’ the truth, as opposed to actually reporting it. The District Attorney programs their state witnesses to testify under oath as to what they “know in their hearts” instead of what actually is reality. Family-owned news agencies planted at the root of the problem follow suit. The more absurd the argument, the more it must be true because they publish this nonsense in the local papers. Especially when they attempt to justify dropping domestic violence charges on their own nephews and cousins.

That’s why news agencies such as the Jacksonville Daily Progress cannot report on the arrest of the District Attorney’s favorite grand jury foreman, most devoted trial jury advocate, etc., etc. Instead they write about the punishment phase of non-relatives like 62 year-old Rusk resident Gary D. Helm, convicted back in October in County Court for Misdemeanor domestic violence. After throwing himself at the mercy of the Judge and refusing counsel, this defendant gets to face probation for using his girlfriend as a punching bag.

American satirist Stephen Colbert and anchorman of the fake news show “The Colbert Report” brought the word “Truthiness” into the mainstream, and “truthiness” is what passes as fact in Cherokee County newspapers. On one episode Stephen Colbert explains the meaning of “truthiness:”

“We’re not talking about truth; we’re talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist…”

“It’s not just that I feel it to be true, I need it to be true…”

You can’t prove a negative. The more absurd it is, the harder it is to prove it is false. This is a distraction technique practiced in the Cherokee County establishment to focus attention away from its blatant nepotism and corruption. And the local newspapers are the means by which they do just that.

It is also a good avenue for the DA’s Investigator to get a buddy’s kid off a felony gun charge, as in the Richard Cobb murder trial. The local newspapers reported the ongoing appeal process of the Richard Cobb/Buenka Adams homicide convictions, but left the part out how District Attorney Elmer Beckworth and Investigator Randy Hatch wrote a letter to the Parole Board to seek leniency for a parole violator with a gun / turned jailhouse snitch who spent time in lockdown with both defendants.

“Whatever you feel in your gut is more important than information itself. ” Especially to the misogynist judicial system and media operating in Cherokee County Texas. It is only a matter of time that one of these violent S.O.B’s they let off the hook kills his own wife like another jailhouse snitch named Michael Harris did in 2003.  All because the District Attorney deems his courthouse informants/kinfolk too valuable an asset to be prosecuted.  Especially if prosecuting their stool pigeons will result in exposing the same prosecutor. As long as the prosecutors’ allies are allowed to get away with crimes against women, Cherokee County news reporters will continue to describe the prosecution of domestic violence as “a fairly uncommon legal occurrence.”

Where is the missing $150,000? Texas Municipal League awards city sued for rapist cop.

 Still missing and unaccounted- $150,000 stolen from the City of Rusk, Texas (pop. 5200)

Rusk, Texas:

The trial of Doris Robinson, the Rusk, TX Water Department clerk and wife of Jacksonville, TX councilman Hubert Robinson, was reported by the local media as going to jury selection on October 14, 2008. The trial was slated for the next day in the 369th District Court, according to the same local media. The original indictment/investigation had been postponed for over a year. Where is the missing money?

(Source: Jacksonville Daily Progress, September 11, 2008)
“She faces one count of tampering with a government record and one count of theft of property by a public servant in an amount over $100,000 but less than $200,000,” said District Attorney Elmer Beckworth. “The crime is elevated due to her position as a public servant. The theft charge she faces is a first-degree felony.”
“[Doris] Robinson was indicted by a grand jury Feb. 25 and has since pleaded not guilty at her arraignment hearing. She is being represented at trial by attorney John Green. The trial will be held in the 369th District Court in Rusk, with Judge Bascom Bentley III presiding.”

According to the front page of the Rusk, Texas newspaper published prior to jury selection, Mrs. Hubert Robinson’s lawyers contend their client was “not a thief” and the City of Rusk accounting procedures was to blame for the missing $150,000.

(Source: Cherokeean Herald, September 10, 2008)
“Mrs. Robinson is represented by Houston attorney John Green.
Mr. Green described Mrs. Robinson as a “good lady, not a thief. She is honest, law abiding and scared to death. The stress is almost unbearable to her.”
Mr. Green continued in saying, “There was a long period of time when the books were not reconciled. I don’t know if they can prove there was money missing. Since then they have gone to new controls (a new bookkeeping system). She got a raw deal. No one saw her taking the money. The evidence is on her side.
“We will be prepared to pick a jury. But, we are trying to settle this thing out of court. I think it will be best for everyone. If not, we will go to trial or get a continuance,” Mr. Green said.

Well, apparently the missing money may still go ‘UNACCOUNTED’, even though the ‘independent’ Palestine based Texas Rangers audited the City of Rusk, TX at the request of Cherokee County prosecutors. Where is the missing money?

(Source: Cherokeean Herald, September 10, 2008)
“Early on in the investigation, Texas Ranger Rudy Flores was asked to participate in the inquiry. The time frame was narrowed to a two-year period spanning from 2004- 06. An independent, forensic audit was performed at the request of District Attorney Elmer Beckworth. ”

Pct. 1 Councilman Hubert Robinson did make a “neighborly” appearance prior to the alleged “trial” at the National Night Out festivities held October 8th at Robinson’s Jacksonville, TX church. A little sleight of hand and good free publicity courtesy of local newspaper staff writers always helps a good cause. As sure as a cat can lick its butt, the Cherokee County media does it share hand-in-hand and lockstep with county officials in whitewashing local theft of services. No news articles from the region ask the simple question: Where is the missing $150,000 in water bill collections? Who is going to be held accountable?

Nothing like having sweet deals and puff pieces written about a poor old stressed out defendant a couple of weeks before “jury selection.” The fact is a Cherokee County Texas petit jury has never been and never will be summoned to hear the case of the missing $150,000. Secondly, only those with political connections within the county have the privilege of having their Defense attorneys air their side of the case in the Cherokeean Herald and Daily Progress hours before the small town jury pool is vetted.

The local East Texas newspapers and media outlets certainly will not inform the public that the case has been dismissed and/or postponed into infinity. At the direction of the Cherokee County District Attorney’s office, this story of theft of public monies has been completely buried by the Cherokee County Texas media.  Where is the missing money, Mr. Prosecutor for the State of Texas? How sweet it is for a Councilman’s wife.

The US Census and City Data reports Rusk, Texas government finances for 2002 alone stood at $220,000 for water utilities and operations.  See http://www.city-data.com/city/Rusk-Texas.html More than half of that has disappeared from the Rusk city hall coffers.

Jacksonville, TX:
Similarly, the Texas Municipal League (the liability insurance provider for a pool of high risk city governments) glosses over the recruitment policies of the city of Jacksonville, TX by dolling out internal awards to their small town insurance carriers. Even those like the city of Jacksonville whose law enforcement protocol is profiling 24/7. And no mention of the enormous premiums the city is paying to compensate for Civil Rights suits brought on by former police officer Larry Pugh, et al.

In an article titled “Texas Municipal League Gives Jacksonville Excellence In Public Safety Award”…for cities with less than 250,000 population, city leaders accept their award issued by their Insurance Company. Like Allstate sending you a Christmas calendar for not killing someone after driving home drunk from the bar. A way to say “Thanks for not making us pay out so much in claims this year, like we did after you hired a rapist predator to patrol your streets.”

 

(Source: Tyler Paper, “Texas Municipal League Gives Jacksonville Excellence In Public Safety Award” November 5, 2008)

During this time period, the city of Denton, Texas also received the Municipal Excellence Award from the TML for its “going green initiatives.”

Not to be out done, both the Mayor and City Manager help stop a thief on the streets of Jacksonville, according the November 19th issue of the Daily Progress. “The city manager and the mayor were driving in the 400 block of Commerce Street when they noticed a black male juvenile looking in the window of a late-model car parked…” The Jacksonville PD was notified and an arrest was made. The Mayor of Jacksonville stated “it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.”

“The circumstances that led up to this were purely accidental. We were just minding our own business when we just happened to stumble on a burglary in progress — it was an exciting moment in time,” Haberle said. “I ran as fast as I could, to the point of exhaustion, trying to catch him, and fortunately the police were able to make an arrest.”

The mayor said he is “sick and tired” of crime in Jacksonville.

“I love this town; this is my home. And whether I’m the mayor or just a regular citizen of this city, I will do whatever I can to make this a better place for everybody,” he said.

Everything except resign and/or call on the Texas Attorney General to investigate the rampant corruption stifling the economic potential of the region. When it comes to ‘police profiling’ these antics are equally preposterous. Lest our readers forget that the nocturnal activities of former Jacksonville police officer Larry Pugh, from 18 months ago, have not been fully investigated. Recruited from the Athens, Texas PD with over 30 prior complaints against him, Officer Pugh hunted down and raped women on the streets of Jacksonville. Missing complainants’ remains were found scattered in the Angelina National Forest.

Before choosing which victims he would rape, Officer Pugh most certainly profiled those women. He selected the economically disadvantaged because he knew they could not afford to hire expensive attorneys and their complaints would fall on deaf ears. Officer Larry Pugh would have assumed his department supervisors and the district attorney’s office would willingly turn blind eyes to any and all criminal complaints made against the City of Jacksonville. Especially by victimized women painted as street urchins and whores. Officer Pugh was charged in State court for having inappropriate “sex with an inmate.” He was never charged in Cherokee County for any sex assault offense, despite nine (9) local women filing police reports and eventually a federal class action suit. And now the City of Jacksonville’s sole liability insurance provider is giving awards to the city they are settling case after case for.

Profiling in the form of blaming the community’s poor citizens for the illegal activities of the real perpetrators (who have influential cousins with deep pockets in the courthouse) is the Cherokee County Texas norm.
Some readers of the local newspapers preferred to be gulled by the lie that Jacksonville’s police officers do not profile the citizens- that they are there “to protect and serve.” The fact is they protect and serve only those on Cherokee County’s safe from accountability list. The other lie is that those who actively recruited, interviewed, hired and salaried Officer Larry Pugh are no longer in city/county government. They are still in public service, waiting to draw their government pensions. They hired and insured a rapist to patrol the streets of Jacksonville, Texas. This rapist is doing almost 17 years in federal prison thanks to the work of the Department of Justice and one woman coming forward after being attacked twice. This victim filed a successful lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville after she was raped at gun point and then retaliated against for speaking to the FBI. Her harrowing story of being sexually assaulted in a cemetery, then weeks later barely escaping being kidnapped in a van can be read here:

http://cherokeecountytexas.wordpress.com/evelyn-lewis-vs-larry-pugh-the-city-of-jacksonville-tx-et-al/

That is the story the Texas Municipal League and the council of corrupt city governments wants stricken from the minds of taxpayers worried about their rising property taxes.
Source: Evelyn Lewis v. City of Jacksonville, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34754 (E. Dist Texas 2007)
and Sandra Rene Roca, Tonya Burns, Debra A Williams, Felicia A Colbert, Della Tyler, Wanda Wilson and Felicia Mosley v . Larry Pugh, the city of Jacksonville, Texas et al, No. 6:2007cv-00081 (US Dist. Ct., E.D. Texas, Tyler Division, February 15, 2007).

Still love your city, Mayor?

Lap dog reporting of fake and asinine awards is intended to aid the current Jacksonville Texas Police Chief, the city of Jacksonville and Cherokee County in general in the ongoing effort of ‘Project Got To Fool ‘Em Everyday.’ With the help of local news agencies, the goal of county authorities is to never be held accountable to those filing legitimate federal lawsuits against the city’s police department personnel for heinous negligence, rapes and drug dealing.

                        

Their political agenda is to manipulate the media and their readers who plausibly may be called for Federal jury duty in Cherokee and Smith counties, as the City of Jacksonville is sued out of existence. Call it premeditated and premature jury tampering.

The Texas Municipal League insures police departments and their specialty is at risk liability. Any insurance provider would have a vested interest in not having to pay out the wazoo. Especially if local jurors find city and county officials culpable for the illegal and negligent actions of its city employees. Fortunately for the TML, they have willing accomplices working in the East Texas news rooms.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Texas.

Wild hogs pig-out on poison and propaganda.

Cherokee County Texas:

Cherokee County bemoans the intrusive feral swine multiplying by the hundreds in East Texas and leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Or so FEMA and other government backed insurance agencies are being told.  County Judges, local dairymen and government subsidize farmers throughout the county have written in to the local newspapers to tell of their own stories of how the filthy little beasts have ravaged their mother’s flower beds. The State of Texas has agricultural extension services available to local farmers and ranchers coping with the influx of feral hog populations. However, in Cherokee County some well-intentioned dairymen and women have taken the matter in their own hands.
For example in 2004,  Jacksonville Texas dairy owner Forrest Dyess and others were charged in federal court for illegally poisoning indigenous and benign wildlife, in order to rid a fellow rancher of feral pigs running across his property. Dyess, a licensed pesticide distributor, sold powerful TEMIK brand poison to Rusk Texas dairyman David Jones, who in turned applied the chemical agent on his buddy Glenn Smith’s property. The pesticide was mixed with horse feed and spread along Smith’s property line and resulted in the killing of deer, buzzards and probably a bunch of squirrels (all out of season and/or illegal) and the Game Warden levying a hefty $21,000 in fines to the group.

The Forrest Dyess family dairy located in Jacksonville, TX has been the recipient of over $500,000 in federal disaster aid payments from 1995 to 2006. Cherokee County’s total farm disaster compensation in the time period was $8.7 million, whereas larger Smith County to the North and Nacogdoches County to the South were both only $3.8 million each. Dairies and farms in Nacogdoches and Smith Counties outnumber Cherokee County’s 10:1. Guess it helps having a cousin or three at the county seat declaring every rain event in town a “natural disaster.” And someone who can sympathize when pigs are eating their carnations before the Homecoming.

Jacksonville Texas: FEMA get rich schemes may not be reported in the local media; however a few defrauders found themselves in federal court this month. Lifelong Jacksonville, TX residents Jerry Bovard, age 20, and Joe Murray, age 45, were both charged by federal prosecutors for filing false wind damage claims with FEMA, both claiming to have resided in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. These two unrelated alleged swindlers have never left the county, nonetheless after all the other fraud occurring right down the road, who wouldn’t be tempted to follow suit?

Houston County Texas:
City of Crockett, TX Police Chief Jimmy Fisher resigned after credit card abuse indictments handed down in August 2008. Fisher had obtained credit cards in his son’s (a DPS officer) name, without the latter’s consent.

Anderson County Texas:
Anderson County Commissioner Pct. 3 Ronny Smith resigns after entering a guilty plea of three felony counts of misuse of government funds. Commissioner Smith took $2600 of county asphalt and topsoil to his own property; he was placed on 1 year probation and given a $1000 fine. Quite a common scene in neighboring Cherokee County, but with cousins as County and District Attorneys, the story of former County workers getting new driveways and private property maintenance goes quite literally “buried.” Especially for those related to sitting Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Justice and Cherokee County Bar Association member, Charles Holcomb. Freshly stocked catfish ponds and county bulldozers maintaining private property working on the taxpayer dime is the norm for those sitting at the top (bottom?) of the East Texas political hierarchy. Smith was also accused of taking a tractor hose fitting from county equipment and using it in his garden. Palestine Texas newspapers make a bigger deal out of Commissioner Ronny Smith “borrowing indefinitely” left over county dirt and tractor parts, than Cherokee County does its constables double-dipping as drug runners, a la Randall Thompson.

Cherokee County Texas:
Similarly, former Rusk city hall employee Doris Robinson is scheduled to have jury selection begin on October 14 for her embezzlement trial. Mrs. Robinson was indicted after 18 months of postponement for allegedly stealing over $150,000 from the Rusk Water Department. Mrs. Robinson maintains her innocence and prosecutors, along with defense, are beginning to surmise an “accounting glitch,” so everyone can be paid off equally and this horrid little story will go away.

Cooke County Texas:
Oak Ridge TX Police Chief Michael Todd Lacey pleaded guilty in Federal Court on September 10, 2008 to one count of extortion. Chief Lacey was apparently fond of pulling over Hispanic motorists on Highway 82 and demanding money in exchange for not issuing citations. Lacey was indicted in April 2008 and is now facing 18 months in federal prison for his extortion tactics. He wasn’t raping his traffic stops on the side of road as Jacksonville TX police officer Larry Pugh did recently, but nonetheless Lacey was violating the civil rights of travelers through his gracious jurisdiction.

Kaufman County Texas:
Sunnyvale ISD Jr. High teacher Chad Michael Hutchins was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography. Hutchins was arrested at his Forney, TX home in June 2007 on similar charges stemming from his correspondences with under age girls on My Space.

Paroled felon with gun turns State’s evidence; has criminal record expunged. Molester pleads to 24 months for raping Jacksonville TX boy.

Rusk, Texas:  In January 2004, death row inmate Richard Aaron Cobb was convicted of capital murder in Cherokee County’s 2nd Judicial District Court, CAUSE NO. 15054. According to a TDCJ summary of the September 2, 2002 incident in Rusk, Texas, Richard Cobb and codefendant Buenka Adams abducted a man and two women during a convenience store robbery. They fatally shot the man, sexually assaulted and shot the two women. The three victims’ bodies were left in a field near Alto, Texas. The two female store clerks survived. Both Richard Cobb and Buenka Adams were convicted of capital murder in Cherokee County, Texas and sentenced to death.

 Information based upon Richard Cobb’s direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals indicates that Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth dropped felony gun possession charges on a habitual criminal, named W.T., for his jail cell testimony against Cobb.  W.T. was strategically placed in the Cherokee County jail cell (in Rusk) with Richard Cobb during the Appellant’s trial and testified he overheard Cobb implicating codefendant Buenka Adams. W.T., a convicted felon, was incarcerated in Rusk, TX for felony possession of a firearm. Appellant Richard Cobb also argued in his Motion that Elmer Beckworth’s office failed to disclose to defense attorneys one victim’s financial arrangement to have her story/testimony broadcasted on the syndicated “Montel Williams’ Show.” The witness was also in the process of writing a book detailing her ordeal.

During a motion for a new trial, Richard Cobb’s attorneys argued the fact that Cherokee County District Attorney Investigator Randy Hatch had made calls to W.T.’s parole officers asking for leniency on their star witness’ behalf. Felony gun charges were completely dropped against W.T. for his cooperation. To date, W.T.’s Cherokee County record has been expunged. District Attorney Elmer Beckworth denied making ‘deals’ with the felon W.T.; however Beckworth told the TXCRIMAPP charges against W.T. were “just not prosecutable” because W.T. was stopped on a four-wheeler on his way to “target practice” in the woods. The fact is W.T.’s testimony was never needed to convict the Cobb/Adams duo of murder; forensics and material evidence were overwhelming against them both. Plus the two surviving victims’ testimony.

W.T’s unecessary testimony was merely a ruse to bolster the district attorney’s case. And let’s not forget who W.T. is related to in Rusk, Texas…an easy ploy to get a friend’s son off of parole altogether. Former DA Investigator Randy Hatch vouched for a convicted felon on parole caught with an illegal firearm, despite the State having ample testimony from the two surviving victims at trial. There never was a TDCJ Parole Revocation Hearing to determine W.T.’s felon gun possession charges. In fact, W.T. was released early from his parole and his identity wiped clean with the help of the district attorney’s office, for being a supposed jailhouse snitch.

District Attorney Elmer Beckworth’s statement (in the Appellant’s brief) to the court regarding dropping his State witness’ felony gun possession charge:

“My experience in over 20 years of felony prosecution the citizens of Cherokee County and East Texas generally are not real fond of weapons offenses, very difficult to get a jury in a felon in possession with a firearm. And in situations where someone is hunting the weapon is in their home or something like this where it’s target practicing and there is no other crimes involved or activities indicating a danger situation it is very difficult to get a conviction and most of those cases are not prosecuted and are declined on the basis of insufficient evidence.”

Quite the opposite stance Elmer Beckworth and the local Cherokee County media takes when probationers have their community service revoked for “target practice” during ’slow news daze.’ The Jacksonville Daily Progress even reports in a convenient article the fact that Texas state law prohibits felons keeping a firearm even within their home, until five years have passed after their parole or probation is over. Texas law in 2002 appropriately applied to Mr. Beckworth’s star witness W.T. states it is “unlawful for a convicted felon to possess a firearm outside of their residence at any time.” Deals to strike the arrest record of a convicted felon are also beyond the pale, except in Cherokee County, Texas.

Attorneys for Richard Cobb produced letters written by W.T. to Elmer Beckworth and his office referencing W.T.’s meetings with Beckworth and investigator Randy Hatch, stating: “At our meeting in Mr. Hatch’s office on 12-19-02 you agreed to completely clear this charge as well as try to have the parole hold lifted so I could get released.” Another letter was written by Beckworth on January 10, 2003. Although it was addressed “to whom it may concern,” Beckworth testified that it was sent to [W.T.'s] parole officer, Roy Shamblin. The letter stated: “Please be advised that this office will not seek prosecution on [W.T.] for the offense of Unlawful Possession of Firearm by Felon. If anything further is needed please contact this office.” Signed Elmer C. Beckworth, Jr. and Randy Hatch.

Apparenlty District Attorney Elmer Beckworth did make a sweet deal with convicted felon W.T.  We can always count on local media to avoid reporting actual court documents and prosecutors to lie about actual proceedings. The ends always justify the means.

Richard Cobb’s capital murder conviction was affirmed by the appeals court and Cobb remains on death row in Huntsville. The Appellant’s arguments were predictably immaterial to the Court of Criminal Appeals; however they shed light on how effortlessly Cherokee County’s district attorney office lies about the deals they cut, when it is politically expedient. Especially when felons are used to bolster their cases. A more progressive court of appeals may have released these murderers back into society and agreed with the Appellant’s points of error made by the Cherokee County, TX prosecutor. Cronyism with unreported and nondisclosed felons is a common Cherokee County district court tactic. And when the judicial errors are revealed, the local newspapers report a crackdown of the exact same crimes ignored prior, complete with embellished police reports. Why? Because Cherokee County is corrupt.

And innocent rail-roaded defendants in the region can expect even the most egregious prosecutorial misconduct, collusion between State Witnesses and Investigators, a la the jailhouse snitch and Randy Hatch, and complete baldface lies to be sanctioned by the higher appellate courts.

The argument is not that Richard Cobb and/or Buenka Adams were obviously guilty of murder and should be put to death. The question is why would the Cherokee County District Attorney deliberately risk putting the trial jury’s verdict in jeopardy by swearing in a convicted felon (who they made deals with) on the stand. Why rely on a jail house snitch to testify when two surviving witnesses would have presented unimpeachable evidence against the defendants? Why? Because Cherokee County is corrupt.

Richard Cobb, death row

Jacksonville, TX:

Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth blames another rape victim for being “too embarrassed to go to trial” during an interview in the August 19, 2008 issue of the Jacksonville Daily Progress. During June and July, Beckworth’s office offered probation and a 24 month prison sentence to Jacksonville, TX resident Stephen Oliver. Oliver, age 48, pleaded guilty to repeatedly sexually assaulting a local teenage boy for over a 2-1/2 year period.

Beckworth, pleased with the light sentence of the child rapist, stated to the Daily Progress the victim would “recant his story” if the case went to trial. Of course Cherokee County residents, voters and readers of the Daily Propagandist are too stupid to realize even teenage minors don’t take the stand in cases of sex assault; their statements are enough to convict offenders for life. Stephen Oliver will spend less time in prison than he did sexually assaulting and ruining the life of a innocent youth.

After serving a few months of his prison term, Stephen Oliver can join the following list of registered Cherokee County Texas sex offenders given probation by Elmer Beckworth, whose names were released in 2006:

• Frank Birden Guinn, age 82, Alto TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 12-year-old female;

• Michael Morrison, 48, Alto TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old female;

• Gary Mark Hayles, 43, Bullard TX, indecency with a child by contact of an 8-year-old female;

• Wesley Boyd Mohr, 60, Bullard TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 10-year-old female;

• William Barry Travis, 54, Bullard TX, aggravated sexual assault of a child of an 8-year-old female;

• Matthew Isaiah White, 17, Bullard TX, indecency by exposure involving a 15-year-old female;

• Christopher Steven Goleman, 33, Gallatin TX, aggravated sexual assault of a disabled 39 year-old female;

• Tommy Junior Allen, 54, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 11-year-old female;

• William Tracy Arnold, 42, Jacksonville TX, burglary and felony involving a 34-year-old female;

• James Travis Baker, 22, Jacksonville TX, indecency of a child by contact of a 6-year-old female;

• James Isaac Barnett, 18, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a child of a 14-year-old-female;

• Brian D. Black, 19, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 10-year-old female;

• Vernon Willis Blackshire, 29, Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 14-year-old female;

• Anthony Eugene Boone, 38, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 6-year-old male;

• Cole Joseph Brooks, 22, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old female;

• Christopher Lee Calley, 25, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 3-year-old female;

• Gark Michael Clark, Jacksonville TX, 52, sexual assault of a child of a 16-year-old girl;

• Arturo Allen Cochran, 26, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old female;

• Carlos Jerome Conner, 37, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old female;

• Steven Daille, 58, Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 15-year-old female;

• James William Dennis, 64, Jacksonville TX, agg. kidnapping/sex assault of a 38-year-old female;

• Jose Ramon Galan, 53, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 9-year-old female;

• Jonathan Keith Glenn, 23, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of an 8-year-old female;

• James Henry Golden, 52, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 36-year-old female;

• Nathan Wayne Grimes, 61, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a 9-year-old female;

• Ollie Ray Grogan, 62, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a 5-year-old male and 7-year-old female;

• Nickolas Noel Harwell, 31, Jacksonville TX, two counts of aggravated sex assault of a 12-year-old female;

• Kevin Lyn Hawes, 42, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 15-year-old;

• Christopher Michael Hennessy, Jacksonville TX, 25, sexual assault of a 15-year-old female; absconded.

• William Lee Hershiser, 48, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 15-year-old female;

• Roger Hunter, 72, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 14-year-old female;

• Aaron Lee Joslin, 25, Jacksonville TX, two counts of sexual performance of a 7-year-old male;

• Robert Michael Lane, 33, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 10-year-old female;

• Jackie Neal Locke, 46, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 13-year-old female;

• Ben Mallard, 47, Jacksonville TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 11-year-old female;

• James Donald McClain, 56, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 20-year-old female, and 11-year-old female;

• Leroy Edward McCuen, 56, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 9-year-old female;

• Kenneth Ray Messick, 59, Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 14-year-old female and 16-year-old female;

• Stacy Bernard Mills, 39, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 11-year-old female;

• Tracey Dewayne Moseley, 33, Jacksonville TX, indecency by exposure, of a 15-year-old female;

• Jamie Lee Newburn, 28, Jacksonville TX, two counts of attempted sexual performance of a 14-year-old female;

• Sammy Carroll Newman, 54, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 12-year-old female;

• Patrick Brian Norsworthy, 43, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of an 8-year-old female;

• Derrick Wendell Owens, 34, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 9-year-old female;

• Kevin Wayne Patton, 36, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 14-year-old female;

• Glenn Durrell Pierce, 49 years of age, Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 15-year-old male;

• Bruce Townsend Powell, 48, Jacksonville TX, attempted sexual assault of a 30-year-old male;

• Jimmy Reed, 47, Jacksonville TX, attempted sexual assault of a 25-year-old female and unknown female;

• Mandell Rhodes Jr., 43, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 52-year-old female;

• Thompson Ward Stricklen, 43, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 11-year-old female;

• Paul Arlen Taylor, 51, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 13-year-old female;

• Terry Lawrence Taylor, 48, Jacksonville TX, indecency by contact of a 12-year-old female;

• James L. Wells, 52, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 5-year-old female and 6-year-old female;

• Johnny Decole Wells, 25, Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 15-year-old female;

• Larry Wayne White, 45, Jacksonville TX, aggravated sexual assault of an 8-year-old female;

• Timothy Kevin Zweck, 32, Jacksonville TX, sexual assault of a 15-year-old female;

• Robby Lee Buffalo, 32, Rusk TX, prohibited sexual assault (incest) of a 11-year-old female;

• Richard Dean Davis, 47, Rusk TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 14-year-old female;

• Nile James Dean, 39, Rusk TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 8-year-old female;

• James William Hammons, 45, Rusk TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old female;

• Jason Aaron Husband, 29, Rusk TX, sexual assault of a child of a 15-year-old female;

• Elbert James Patton, 90, Rusk TX, indecency with a child by contact of an 8-year-old female and 9-year-old female; deceased.

• Delian Brenanard Session, 43, Rusk TX, sexual assault of a 34-year-old female and 11-year-old-female;

• Troy Gibbs Sutherland, 31 years of age, Rusk TX, attempted sexual assault of a 15-year-old female;

• Aubrey Thomas Taylor, 48 years of age, Rusk TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 10-year-old female;

• Dale Joseph Tylich, 51, Rusk TX, indecency with a child by contact of a female less than 16 years of age;

• Charles Clifton Bruner, 45, Troup TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 6-year-old female;

• Michael Servetus Childs, 31 years of age, Troup TX, sexual assault of a 14-year-old female;

• Tommy Robert Husband, 46 years of age, Troup TX, indecency with a child by contact of a 16-year-old female;

• Michael Sean Lee, 33 years of age, Troup TX, indecency with a child of a 13-year-old female;

• Timmey Martin, 41 years of age, Troup TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 14-year-old female;

• Michael Ryan McMichael, 34 years of age, Troup TX, indecency with a child of a 12-year-old female;

• Martin Otis Pitts, 51 years of age, Troup TX, two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a 7-year-old female;

• Bryan Thomas Toombs, 31 years of age, Troup TX, aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old female.

• Alisha Arriola Corley, 36 years of age, Wells TX, sexual assault of a 15-year-old male.

 

That’s your Cherokee County Texas district courts hard at work. The District Attorney’s office makes sure assault arrests of their grand and petite jury foreman never sees the light of day, either. Do a county by county comparison.

 § 22.01. ASSAULT. (a) A person commits an offense ifThe offense is a third degree felony if the offense is committed against an arresting officer or a victim of family violence.

the person:

(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes

bodily injury to another, including the person’s spouse;

(2) intentionally or knowingly threatens another with

imminent bodily injury, including the person’s spouse; or

(3) intentionally or knowingly causes physical

contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably

believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or

provocative.

 

Palestine, Texas:

Anderson County Sheriff candidate Steven Quick, age 46, was arrested on a domestic violence charge on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend at their Palestine, TX residence. Both Quick and his girlfriend are Anderson County Jail employees; Mr. Quick being the former Chief Jailer and Democratic candidate vying for Anderson County Sheriff in November’s general elections. The assault appears to be isolated to a domestic dispute involving the dog kennels at their trailer house.

 

Steven Quick, Palestine TX

Texas Occupational Code

CHAPTER 53. CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION

§ 53.002. APPLICABILITY OF CHAPTER. This chapter does

not apply to:

(1) the Supreme Court of Texas, a person licensed

under the court’s authority on behalf of the judicial department of

government, or an applicant for a license issued under the court’s

authority on behalf of the judicial department of government;

(2) a peace officer or an applicant for a license as a

peace officer described by Article 2.12, Code of Criminal

Procedure; or

(3) a person who:

(A) is licensed by the Texas State Board of

Medical Examiners, the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, the State

Board of Dental Examiners, or the State Board of Veterinary Medical

Examiners; and

(B) has been convicted of a felony under Chapter

481 or 483 or Section 485.033, Health and Safety Code.

Under Title 3 of the Texas Occupational Code and the Medical Practice Act, autonomous state agencies regulate the licensing of doctors, dentists, pharmacists, acupuncturists and other health providers. Such as the Texas Medical Board and Board of Dental Examiners. It is this dichotomy of legal statutes that allows arrested and convicted offenders to continue to practice their licensed professions unnoticed within the county. Normally, the arrest of Cherokee County professionals and subsequent dismissal of charges goes unreported. Especially those members of the local Chamber of Commerce or related to the county’s ‘Politico.’ The district attorney’s office doesn’t want anyone to spill the beans.

The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners and the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners (TSBDE) compiles public databases to review license holders’ disciplinary actions. The Texas State Pharmacy Board also reviews its members. And these professional boards don’t look kindly at license holders not reporting their assaultive offenses and continuing to operate in health related services. Because the local Cherokeean Herald and Jacksonville Daily Progress take their marching orders from the Rusk Texas courthouse (and refuse to print articles when prosecutor’s cousins are arrested), readers can be informed of Cherokee County inmate bookings via the online VINELink. Anderson County jails, however are routinely offline. Crime victims may choose to register with the service: The Texas Statewide Automated Victim Notification System (SAVNS) that gives offenders’ county jail custody and case status. The Texas SAVNS hotline is available 24/7 at 1-877-TX4-VINES (1-877-894-8463).

TDCJ  also offers inmate information at their state-level facilities via their website at : http://168.51.178.33/webapp/TDCJ/index2.htm

Under Sec. 153.0045. RULES ON CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION, the boards adopted Chapter 53 of the Texas Occupational Code requiring hearings and stiff penalties when license holders are convicted of crimes.

“The board shall adopt rules and guidelines as necessary to comply with Chapter 53, except to the extent the requirements of this subtitle are stricter than the requirements of that chapter-Added by Acts 2005, 79th Leg., ch. 269, Sec. 1.12, eff. Sept. 1, 2005.”

A good example from the Texas Medical Board, Fall 2006-

UNPROFESSIONAL OR DISHONORABLE CONDUCT VIOLATIONS:

GOODMAN, JOHN WILLIS, M.D., RUSK, TX, Lic. #D2437

On October 6, 2006, the Texas Medical Board and Dr. Goodman entered into an Agreed Order requiring that he have a chaperone in the room any time he performs a physical examination on any patient and prohibiting him from performing genital or rectal examinations. The action was based on allegations that Dr. Goodman conducted inappropriate genital examinations on several [Rusk State Hospital] inmates in 1998.

Sec. 153.006. CRIMINAL RECORD REPORT.

(a) “The board may receive criminal record reports from any law enforcement agency or another source regarding a license holder or license applicant. ” This is a valuable law and resource to the public when it comes to drug convictions of health professionals, that may otherwise go unreported. As in Dr. Goodman of the Rusk State Hospital in 2006.

Jacksonville, Texas:

Deborah Raissi, wife of Jacksonville, TX City Manager Mo Raissi, pleaded guilty on Monday, June 9, 2008 to possession of marijuana and drunk driving from an earlier arrest in Bullard, TX. Mrs. Rassi was pulled over by Bullard PD on Highway 69, in the wee morning hours back in October 2007. She was offered 2 1/2 years probation, a thousand dollar fine and community service. And the story has been cached away from public scrutiny.

  D.Raissi (Courtsey Smith County, TX)

Smith County, Texas:

Precinct 1 Constable Henry Jackson  recently facing 10 State charges, ranging from felony tampering with governmental records, official oppression and sexual harassment of a female deputy. Constable Jackson had his bond lowered after an alleged violation, i.e. he continue to operate his unlicensed security company. His bond was originally set at $1 million.

Constable Jackson’s criminal trials began in August, but was postponed for the more sensational “Mineola Swingers’ Club” trial in Smith County. Felony corruption charges were completely dropped during an impromptu meeting with State and County attorneys and Jackson’s defense team. According to the Tyler, TX newspaper, Jackson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and was fined $100. He must complete an overly excessive 6 months probation and 200 hours of community service before returning to work without a criminal record. Constable Henry Jackson runs unopposed in Smith County’s Pct.1 during November’s elections. And that is East Texas politics at its finest hour!

Whitehouse, Texas:

Timothy Adcock, age 25, of Whitehouse, TX pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 in Tyler’s federal court. He is facing 10 years in federal prison. Having a cousin or two in the prosecutor’s seat at the Rusk, Texas courthouse gives Cherokee County’s variety of counterfeit Christians, wife beating sociopaths and pedophiles absolutely no culpability. Contrasted with Smith County officials who admit child abuse is on the rise in the area.

Henderson County, Texas:

Inmates within the Athens, TX jailhouse are suing Henderson County authorities on a variety of health and sanitation issues. Inmates named in the federal class action suit are seeking punitive damages for neglect.

Shelby County, Texas:

A federal lawsuit claims that Shelby County officials working out of Tenaha, TX have been targeting minorities and motorists during obvious ‘asset seizure’ practices. Innocent people have been forced to sign over their personal effects during traffic stops in the county, to avoid being charged with “money laundering.”

  Tenaha, Texas is on a major drug route.                                                    US 59

The most recent case to make through the well-disposed US Eastern District Court is 2:2008cv00288 Morrow v. City of Tenaha Deputy City Marshal Barry Washington, et al  

The East Texas media has been approvingly quiet in the past when it came to small towns’ “Highway Robbery.” An example that barely saw the light: in 2007, Shelby County Assistant Auditor Marilyn Lout, age 70, stole nearly $200,000 from the county’s Indigent Health Care Fund. Mrs. Lout, a cancer patient and grandmother, had been funneling money to her daughter-in-law in Hardin County. The Texas Attorney General’s office seized other diverted monies and assets of unnamed individuals after a raid on Lout’s Shelbyville, TX home. Marilyn Lout quietly accepted a plea bargain with Shelby County prosecutors of 10 years probation after threatening to “tell all.” This poor East Texas grandma meant business and the sympathetic media in the region has all but buried the misappropriation and theft of taxpayer money.

Marilyn Lout, Shelby County TX auditor

It has come to light that Shelby County officials have been supplementing their county salaries with over $3 million in seized money and property from motorists. The Shelby County officials named in the Morrow lawsuit are not part of a wider Drug Task Force. US Hwy 59, a notorious corridor for drugs from Mexico, travels through greater East Texas and downtown Tenaha.

 

                         Tenaha, TX in Shelby County

The back roads of East Texas are prime sources of undocumented revenue for local law enforcement and officers of district courts. The shakedown of out-of-state travelers has been going on for decades in the Piney Woods.  And as they say, there are plenty of narcotic interdiction officers along this route willing to violate the 4th Amendment.

US 59 between Marshall and Jefferson, TX [courtesy Wikimedia]

The best advice to motorists traveling this area of East Texas-

 Don’t go. Turn around and go home.

Terrorist Organization sets up shop in downtown Jacksonville, Texas.

Jacksonville, TX:

The Jacksonville, Texas Police Department to hold a press conference  at 10:00 am July 25, 2008 linking the House of Israel to “known terrorist groups,” as reported in the Tyler Paper. Several members of the rag tag fugitive fleet of Christian anarchists have been arrested on various parole and probation violations, including their spiritual leader Robert Fox. Fox at Law, not an attorney, has allegedly been providing legal services via the Internet to convicts and reprobates throughout the country for a fee. The House of Israel has been linked to offshoots of the Republic of Texas and has been a local haven for meandering ex-cons seeking justice through illiterate means. Perfect place to set up International Headquarters. On Friday, July 25, 2008 the JPD will officially and publicly connect the hodgepodge of miscreants to terrorism. Instead of using the Jacksonville Daily Progress forums to anonymously castigate the Halfway House of drug addicts, distastefully lodging themselves across from the Main Street Fire Station.

A good deflection and distraction from the multitude of FBI investigations, civil rights violations, rapings, beatings and drug dealings of the city of Jacksonville’s own law enforcement. They want to focus on this Robert Fox guy’s giving out Oxycontin to jailbirds and teaching them how to clog the American judiciary with grievances and court cases … and he’s got a Bin Laden look-a-like wandering around his Canadian compound over by the Shop-A-Lot.

Is the rest of the State buying the preliminary Federal Court hearing propaganda? Or did the Jacksonville Police Department take over the role of Homeland Security and Department of Propaganda? Robert Fox is out on bond and not wanted by federal authorities.

Let’s get this right: Cherokee County Texas, population 47 thousand, is a haven for drug addicts, child abusers, pedophiles, wife beaters, crystal meth dealers, rapists AND Terrorists?

The House of Israel, located in downtown Jacksonville, Texas, has been raided on numerous occasions by Cherokee County authorities on charges ranging from practicing dentistry without a license, to hording and reselling medical waste, i.e. antibiotics and expired painkillers. One of the arrestees, David Baugh a parole violator from Missouri, has a pending Civil Rights Suit against the city:

David George Baugh vs. city of Jacksonville, Texas et al, No. 6:2008cv00173 and No. 6:2008cv00219 (Us Dist Ct. E.D. Texas, Tyler Division May 5, 2008 and May 30, 2008).

Cherokee County Texas is more concerned with a Whack Job religious cult (made up of ex-cons on Welfare they once greeted with open arms) scratching out a living selling expired prescriptions, than they are their own Precinct 3 Constable Randall Thompson supplementing his child support payments (and County gas allowance) by manufacturing crystal meth for wholesale. And keeping that newly hatched Cherokee County Narcotics Task Force busy. As far as the Jacksonville, TX police department, we haven’t heard of any complaints of rape and retaliation against members of the ‘House of Terror’ as we recently have on former Officer Larry Pugh, et al in Federal Civil Rights class action suits such as:
Sandra Rene Roca, Tonya Burns, Debra A Williams, Felicia A Colbert, Della Tyler, Wanda Wilson and Felicia Mosley v . Larry Pugh, the city of Jacksonville, Texas et al, No. 6:2007cv-00081(US Dist. Ct., E.D. Texas, Tyler Division, February 15, 2007).

Does the city of Jacksonville, TX remember all these women who were raped at the hands of a unsupervised Jacksonville police officer? Who is terrorizing who?

Lon Morris coach arrested for child porn at Cherokee County Jr. College.

Warning: Cherokee County Texas institutions are bastions of child exploitation and employ purveyors of child pornography.The mass exodus of Rusk Independent School District faculty members earlier this year is based upon the revelation that protected locals and administration officials with a penchant for photography have been under FBI scrutiny for years- stemming from the 2001-2002 Department of Justice crackdown of Palestine, Texas resident Mark Bates - the Webmaster of a worldwide e-mail child pornography ring originating from Internet servers in Anderson and Cherokee Counties.  Why did the Rusk High School principal and all those Rusk ISD teachers and coaches turn in their resignations?

The FBI sting called “Operation Candyman” netted individuals throughout the country, including an A&M cadet in Brownsville and two men from the Houston,TX area. 89 subscribers total were indicted. Mark Bates, age 33 of Palestine, TX was sentenced in December 2002 to 30 years prison for being the mastermind and moderator of the website used to download images federal prosecutors called “absolutely appalling in the depth of their depravity.”  Many arrested subscribers to Mark Bates’ email group  (such as Toby Barnett from Lufkin, Texas) were people ‘holding positions of trust with frequent contact with children.’  Mark Bates had two prior child molestation convictions and a history of mental disorders.

The ongoing cover up of this type of depraved and illegal activity should show the rest of the state just how duplicitous Cherokee County Texas really is. Especially when local officials pretend to have no knowledge of kiddie porn being distributed from computers owned by the school district. A place where under the guise of fake evangelicalism, the images of broken and bloody bodies of children have been traded like Green Stamps on the Internet for decades. While at the same time Cherokee County district attorney Elmer Beckworth offers probation to a Rusk Texas man who mutilated his own 12-month old daughter, and the district court voraciously accepts any and all plea bargains to over 3 dozen registered sex offenders within the county. Mark Bates’ child porn ring of 6 years ago apparently never ceased to exist outside the area, with ongoing federal sentences (such as  Jeffrey Scott Ray of Nacogdoches and Toby Barnett of Lufkin, TX) never making it to the pressroom.  The list continues.

Jacksonville, Texas:

Lon Morris College’s  head golf coach  Barry Dean Griffin, age 38, has been arraigned in federal court for possession and distribution of child pornography. Coach Barry Griffin was arrested Monday, June 9, 2008 after surrendering to federal authorities in Tyler, Texas. According to the June 10, 2008 issue of the Tyler Paper, Lon Morris faculty member Barry Griffin :  “has been charged by complaint for allegedly possessing and distributing child pornography on May 30 in Cherokee County [Texas]. If convicted, he could face 5 to 20 years in prison for the distribution charge and up to 10 years in prison for the possession charge.”

Monday’s appearance by Griffin in front of Tyler, TX based US Magistrate Judge John Love was reported here first. He has not been formally indicted.

Lon Morris College coach Barry Dean Griffin

Barry Griffin is a junior college Kinesiology instructor and coach for Jacksonville, Texas based Lon Morris and has been since 2005. The Lon Morris men’s golf team  took fourth place in a recently held NJCAA tournament in Huntsville, Alabama, with hotel accommodations arranged by the college. Griffin has also traveled out of state to Daytona, Florida where he accompanied the Lon Morris College girl’s golf team , who took a 4th place prize at the women’s NJCAA national championship games.

Similarly, the Jacksonville home of Rusk ISD drama coach Harold “Bo” Scallon was raided last year by federal authorities on a tip from the Longview, TX police department. The tip being that the High School teacher was distributing child pornography over the Internet. His personal laptop, school computer and hard drives were confiscated by the FBI. Scallon pleaded guilty on April 4, 2008 in federal court to possessing over 150 sadomasochistic images of minors. He taught for the Rusk Independent School District for nearly 30 years and with parents’ blessings, participated in numerous overnight ‘theater camps.’ Due to a plea agreement, his child porn distribution charge was dropped by federal prosecutors, though he still faces decades in federal prison. Certainly the community and school administrators will rally around to petition for Mr. Scallon’s early release and leniency prior to his sentencing date being reported. As they did with Alto, Texas postmaster Herbert Dominguez, prior to his federal sentencing for stealing $27,000 of United States Post Office material- but never reporting it.

Local Cherokee County, Texas media portray Rusk High School Theater class’ Bo Scallon official retirement and contractual obligations to the school district as ending in April 2007, prior to the FBI raid. However, Harold “Bo” Scallon’s continual employment with the Rusk ISD was apparent to the FBI because investigators seized his company computer from the Rusk High School and examined its hard drives. Forensics on his computers uncovered massive files storing violent and graphic depictions involving children.

mugshot of Rusk,TX teacher Harold “Bo” Scallon

The ongoing out-of-county reports of federal investigations compared to the nonexistent media coverage, nor local outcry, begs the question: Has Cherokee County, Texas always been a child molestation and child pornography refuge? Local offenders certainly do not have to worry about prison time if they cut deals with the Cherokee County District Attorney’s office after falling in the hands of Elmer Beckworth .

View the locations of registered child molesters living steps from the Rusk Texas courthouse and Rusk Texas Jr.-Sr. High Schools mapped on a website called FamilyWatchdog .                                              

Found at: http://www.familywatchdog.us                                                                                                

Infant molesters (whose victims are as young as 1 to 6 years-old) all handed probation and local Adult Supervision by the Cherokee County district attorney’s office -and not spending one day in prison.

 

 [known registered Rusk, TX sex offenders - courtesy of Family Watchdog]

As a footnote, Harold “Bo” Scallon was sentenced on Tuesday June 17, 2008 in the US District Courts to 6 1/2 years federal prison time for possessing Internet child pornography. He will remain under parole supervision for 5 years after completing his federal prison term. Had the Rusk ISD faculty member actually acted on his sick fantasies and molested a Jr. High student, then the Cherokee County district attorney would have offered Scallon a few months probation (just like Elmer Beckworth’s office did for Chris Hennessy, a Rusk Texas patrol officer offered a paltry probation sentence of months instead of years for raping a Rusk ISD Jr. High girl in 2004).  Or Cherokee County prosecutors would simply ignore the problem like the community and Rusk school board has for the last 30 years of Harold “Bo” Scallon’s teaching career.  The world may never know how many deals were struck to keep this guy’s perverted pastimes out of the Rusk ISD school bulletin and news.

Also buried in the archives and the local School Board meeting minutes is a report of another Rusk ISD school teacher and former Jacksonville High School faculty member, Brian Basse sentenced to 3 years TDCJ time in 2007 for sexual contact with a student. Explicit Instant Messages and photos were recovered from his laptop computer by the FBI. Basse had been a Rusk Texas school teacher for 7 years, before relocating from the Jacksonville ISD. Brian Basse’s 36 month sentence (which he may serve 80% of) was handed to him from the 2nd Judicial District Court in Rusk, TX.

 

And don’t forget about Josh Allen music teacher at the Jacksonville Christian Academy and youth minister for the Tyler Street Baptist Church being sentenced in 2007 to 4 years for possession of child pornography- over 600 graphic and violent images. Tyler Street Baptist Church is a long time polling place for voters in Cherokee County’s Precinct No. 15. The US District Court “noted that Allen has no past criminal history and that he had the support of his church – factors in issuing the relatively lenient sentence.”   Great.     Gregg County Texas charged Josh Allen for his porn distribution into their county, since Cherokee County Texas failed to do so. A local investigation was not required from the source because, as Allen told Federal Judge Leonard Davis during his January 4, 2007 sentencing, local authorities believed the choir director still “had an opportunity to be part of the solution to the problem” of child porn being distributed via the Internet from Cherokee County, Texas. Allen received the same lack of media attention coupled with an outpouring of local support as did Jeffrey Scott Ray and Toby Lynn Barnett. Ray’s residence in Nacogdoches, TX was raided by federal authorities in 2006 and his sentencing not reported; Jeffrey Ray Scott got 70 months in federal prison.  Toby Barnett was charged with possession of child porn and given 3 years probation in 2002 for “not having a prior criminal record,” even though he had been convicted in Nacogdoches, TX for assault in 1996.

Just do a comparison on how the legal system operates 40 miles away in Smith County, Texas. For instance, the recent Wednesday June 18, 2008 sentencing of Daniel Wayne Tidwell, age 29 of Tyler, in the 241st District Court doling out 50 years state prison time. This is after Tidwell pleading guilty to the sexual assault of a 15 year-old girl. Daniel Tidwell did have prior felony convictions, but regardless was facing 5 years to life for the rape.

Don’t forget the crack down on the Mineola Swinger’s Club that has made national news, either. The third defendant out of a string of arrests, Patrick “Booger Red” Kelly , a foster parent, is on trial for drugging children 9 years-old and younger and forcing them to perform strip club-esque dances for patrons of Mineola, Texas’ honky tonk. A version of what Cherokee County, Texas’ counterfeit Christians have been doing for decades: exploiting children and getting away with it. Smith County CPS removed the children from the homes of participants beginning in 2004 when it became apparent drug use and sexual abuse was occurring in the “deeply religious community.” Also awaiting trial are Dennis Boyd and Rebecca Pittman; and Jimmy Dale and Shelia Darlene Sones. Local swingers in the East Texas sex ring Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Loraine Mayo were convicted and sentenced to life in prison earlier in May, for their involvement in making children perform sex acts on stage.

An even better recent comparison would be the 2006 trial in Smith County of a preacher named Jefferson Marion Moore, age 58 at the time, also the Dogwood City Daycare and Preschool operator convicted of molesting a 6 year-old girl left in his care. He was a full time pastor for the Dogwood City Chapel, or “Brother Jeff” as they called him.  Jefferson Moore was convicted and sentenced to LIFE in prison for the rape he committed. Moore had been indicted on three counts of sexual assault of a minor involving a 6, 7 and 4  year-old. “Brother Jeff” Moore was also charged with retaliation after an altercation with Smith County prosecutors during courtroom deliberations and given 10 extra years. On the brighter side, the Tyler Paper reports in its June 25, 2008 edition that Jefferson Moore died of “natural causes” in his cellblock earlier this month after serving 2 years in prison. Dogwood City, Texas is a small unincorporated community on Lake Palestine and ideal retirement spot for district judges, located on the Cherokee County / Smith County border and 20 miles from downtown Jacksonville, Texas. No probation offers or lenient sentences for this child molester; the Smith County community certainly did not rally in support of the only preacher and licensed babysitter in their tiny town. Incidentally, the United States Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday June 25, 2008 that it is unconstitutional for states to execute child rapists. That will certainly keep Cherokee County’s sexual predator population on a steady incline.

 

 Pastor Jefferson Moore (deceased), daycare owner and child molester

In April 2005, the Kilgore, Texas newspaper The Kilgore News Herald began an expose, aptly named “Child Pornography Big Problem in East Texas,” on how pervasive the crime was becoming.

Next month, more East Texas child molesters off the streets and in federal prison, such as Franklin Albert Pearce of Wood County, Texas gets life for the sexual assault of a 6 year-old girl. William Allen Pipes of Gilmer, TX pleads guilty to distributing child porn and faces 10 years.

In local school news, the superintendent of Overton ISD Dr. Mark Stretcher, after “unexpectedly” resigning his post in January due to a “personal illness and pressure” and subsequently throwing the Overton, TX school district in disarray- why Dr. Stretcher has been charged with felony theft of public funds. Stretcher pleaded guilty to ‘theft in office’ on Friday June 27, 2008.  Beware Rusk County, Texas you are in a close second for most corrupt.

State Trooper killed by armed parole violator released by Cherokee County, Texas.

TEXAS PENAL CODE        § 39.02 ABUSE OF OFFICIAL CAPACITY. 

(a) A public servant commits an offense if, with intent to obtain a benefit or with intent to harm or defraud another, he intentionally or knowingly:
(1)  violates a law relating to the public servant’s
office or employment;  or
(2)  misuses government property, services, personnel,
or any other thing of value belonging to the government that has
come into the public servant’s custody or possession by virtue of
the public servant’s office or employment.

Rusk, Texas:   North East Texas mourns the loss of decorated DPS trooper James Scott Burns, shot and killed the night of April 29, 2008 by ex-Kilgore, TX police officer Brandon Wayne Robertson during a high speed chase through Marion County, Texas.  Robertson was under MANDATORY SUPERVISED PAROLE in Smith County, Texas. Nonetheless, Cherokee County Texas had Brandon Robertson in their custody 3 weeks prior on April 7, 2008, but chose to ‘cash out’ for bond on the parolee’s TWO charges of felony possession of narcotics and felony possession of a gun, instead of following the letter of law and notifying the offender’s Parole Officers in Smith County. Brandon Robertson had the same legal rights and lack thereof as a prisoner sitting in TDCJ despite his early parole. And on the outside, he certainly didn’t have a Travel Permit that allowed him to SPEED through Cherokee and Marion Counties and back again each week.

Brandon Robertson was bonded out at $7500 each for both felony citations in Cherokee County Texas on April 7, 2008.  Somebody at the courthouse told the Bondsman/woman that this was perfectly legal. And of course the Bondsman/woman, the Justice of the Peace, 2nd Judicial District Judge and arraigning Municipal Judge are all daughter, uncle, brother and father in Rusk, Texas. One would think these people had been sued enough not to listen to the legal advice of the district attorney’s office.

The dirty little secret is: Category I Parolees, such as Robertson, during traffic stops and arrests are not entitled to Bail until the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole reviews the charges via the revocation process. They pretty much have to grab their ankles and spread their butt cheeks during routine traffic stops. Parolees have no “rights to bond” per se, or rights of Due Process when it comes to physical searches.  A process not implemented in Cherokee County Texas even though Brandon Robertson was traveling county to county (in violation of his parole) dealing crystal meth to every Small Town Tom, Dick and Harry and Naked Trucker. And Cherokee County decided to set and keep $15000 worth of bond instead of notifying Brandon Robertson’s Parole Officers of his incarceration. In turn, the Parole Officers would have 5 days to review the charges against Robertson, while Robertson sat in jail waiting for a TDCJ hearing. Quite simply, Cherokee County Texas had no legal jurisdiction to set bail for the release of the armed convict after the DPS cited him.

East Texas Trooper, James Burns slain by released parole violator

Brandon Wayne Robertson, age 37, had been on parole for multiple felony drug and theft convictions, as well as unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon in Gregg County, TX. Doing the world a favor, Robertson committed suicide Thursday May 1. The dirtbag piece of human debris killed himself after an extensive statewide manhunt immediately after his cold blooded murder of Trooper James Burns. The trooper’s slaying was witnessed by travelers trying to assist the fallen lawman; a description of Robertson’s vehicle was broadcasted throughout the region as authorities closed in on Robertson’s whereabouts. Huddled up somewhere near his crystal meth lab in the woods of Cass County, Texas, Brandon Robertson shot himself before his capture.

Remember, the city of Jacksonville, Texas police department can help federal and state authorities locate and detain felons wanted in other states when they pop up in Cherokee County, but the Sheriff’s department can’t keep an absconding parolee from a neighboring county in their jail 5 days for a TDCJ Parole Board review. “The US constitution” told them they had to let Robertson out on bail, even after Elmer Beckworth and Todd Staples (R) co-opted the State legislators with the “Faye Bell Harris Amendment.”

The same week parolee Brandon Robertson was arrested and released, the city of Jacksonville, Texas police department touted in the local newspaper The Daily Progress how they arrested two men from out of state affiliated with the “House of Israel” (a supposed Jacksonville based offshoot of the Republic of Texas group); one named Stephen L. Jackson, age 49 of Missouri found in the databases to be wanted on 2 counts, one federal/ one state.

From the Daily Progress April 8, 2008: “[Stephen] Jackson was found to have an outstanding ATF warrant and a warrant from the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri for unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon. He was held in the city jail overnight, and was transferred into the custody of ATF agents Tuesday afternoon.”

Jacksonville, TX Police Chief Reece Daniel publicizes how his investigators turned evidence against Jackson over to the ATF. Evidently the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department cannot do the same when it comes to parole violators from neighboring Smith County, Texas who are carrying guns, drugs and cash for bail money on their person.

Trooper James Burns leaves behind a grieving family and community. His funeral was held Saturday May 3, 2008. Murdered on the roadside by an ex-con armed with a shotgun who was recently released from Cherokee County jail – on his way back down the road with a pat on the back- for once being a good Rusk County cop and “never really doing anything wrong before” turning to selling crystal meth, stealing and killing people in a drug induced hysteria. All of which is a parole violation. They probably let him keep his gun, too.

[Trooper James Burns' patrol vehicle, courtesy Longview, TX News-Journal]

James Scott Burns was the 83rd Texas State Highway Trooper to be killed in the line of duty. The ultimate tragedy and blame lies in what neighboring county, Cherokee County TX could have done days earlier in the month of April, when Brandon Robertson was in Cherokee County’s custody. His illicit drug trafficking was temporarily postponed by fellow DPS troopers to the south, patrolling Rusk, Texas. Robertson was stopped, his vehicle searched and he was then arrested for drug possession AND UNLAWFUL CARRYING OF A WEAPON BY A FELON by two Department of Public Safety officers. Robertson was transported and booked in the Cherokee County jail in Rusk, Texas on April 6th. His parole officers were not notified, instead Cherokee County decided to collect $15000 worth of ‘cash-out bond’ for Robertson’s charges and keep Smith County and the Parole Board in the dark. A typical move for small towns trying to generate revenue.

According to an interview with arraigning Rusk, Texas municipal Judge Forrest Phiffer by Longview News Journal reporter Randy Ross, parolee Brandon Robertson was stopped at 9:40 a.m. on April 6 by the DPS and charged with “possession of a controlled substance and possession of a firearm by a felon. He [Robertson] was released the next day on two $7,500 bonds, according to sheriff’s office records.”

View the archived newspaper paper article titled “Suspect arrested weeks before troopers’s shooting” published May 8, 2008 by the Longview/Marshall, TX News-Journal: http://www.news-journal.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/05/08/05082008_trooper_suspect.html 

The next morning, the Cherokee County district judge, the sheriff’s office and district attorney passed on prosecuting parolee Brandon Robertson for his illegal narcotics plus his gun and allowed Robertson to post bail. They didn’t even bother to confiscate his vehicle. As a Class I felon on parole, Brandon Robertson was subject to random searches from his parole officers. During a traffic stop, the DPS would call for back up after identifying the parolee as such, as they did on April 6 in Cherokee County, for two DPS officers to be present while they searched the offender’s vehicle. Caught with drugs and a gun, that parolee A.K.A. Brandon Robertson would automatically have his right to bail denied according to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. Robertson would be transported to the nearest county holding facility and the Sheriff, required by Texas Law, would notify the offender’s Parole Officer (named in the DPS database). All those things occurred, except the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department notification to Smith County of Brandon Robertson’s incarceration. Hence, Brandon Robertson was out making his DRUG MULE deliveries throughout East Texas while he was in violation of parole for the 5th time AND simultaneously out on 2 Felony bonds. His Smith County Parole Officers would have issued a warrant for his arrest by April 11, 2008 had he not voluntarily turned himself in. He apparently was set on not going back to jail alive.

“But that wouldn’t make a crackheaded thug like Brandon Robertson become agitated and non-complicit in the next traffic stop by authorities.” He was an “ideal” prisoner according to Cherokee County, so just because he was going back to prison didn’t mean he would pull a gun on the next law enforcement officer in his path of self destruction… Naaaw. For God’s Sake, the maniac killed himself to avoid going to prison. Cherokee County Texas in typical fashion would rather blame the United States Constitution and recite fictitious legal requirements for accepting $15000 bail from an armed convict on his way back to prison.

Cherokee County authorities never even notified Robertson’s parole officers in Smith County. In a matter of hours, Brandon Wayne Robertson was back on the highway to deal drugs, armed with a 20- Gauge COPKILLER. They literally just let the guy drive off. No hearing, no phone calls to a Parole Officer, no formal arraignment, just a deputy escort right out the front door.

22 days later, Brandon Robertson killed a Texas State Trooper who chased him through Marion County Texas transporting more illegal drugs into the region.

 ex-con and ex-police officer Brandon Wayne Robertson

 

Brandon Robertson was well-known by local law enforcement, having previously worked for the Overton, TX and Kilgore, TX police departments between 1990 and 1999 and with the Rusk County Sheriff’s Department (notorious for its internal corruption problems) for several years.  Robertson turned to transporting and selling crsytal methamphetamine, or “ICE” to supplement his law enforcement salary until authorities arrested him. He had served 4 months of a 4 year sentence in TDCJ for multiple crimes until he was paroled in April 2007. Parole is a privilege not a right, an opportunity granted to prove rehabilitation dictated by the State Legislature. However, Brandon Robertson’s early release on good behavior is not the issue:  The issue is Cherokee County Texas setting bond on a parole violator and not notifying Smith County of his arrests. Brandon Robertson would have and should have been transported to the county responsible for his MANDATORY PAROLE SUPERVISION. And while the offender remained behind bars, a parole hearing would have decided his right to bail. Not a “City Judge” from Rusk Texas trying to generate “cash bonds” for the county to pocket. Cash money generated from the sale of illegal narcotics going into the coffers of Cherokee County Texas.

Any attempt to lie for the record by Cherokee County Texas authorities is the normal operating procedure. A parolee with a gun in his possession is an automatic incarceration for however long it takes to have a Parole Hearing or district court hearing to ascertain bail requirements. Elmer Beckworth, Sheriff James Campbell and other locals in Cherokee County recently championed the preventable death of Faye Bell Harris of Jacksonville, TX and the need to “deny bail” to at-risk offenders.  A needless death of a woman begging the Cherokee County district courts for help, even though her estranged husband Michael Harris continued to threaten, trespass and eventually shot gun her dead in her front yard in front of her children. Now after redundant and fictitious legislation has passed since 2006, i.e. Proposition 2, Proposition 6 and Proposition 13 reported by local Cherokee County media as “Elmer’s Law has passed unanimously…”

…why, now for some reason Cherokee County Texas cannot deny bail or even notify the appropriate parole officers of a felon with a gun and crystal meth who is stopped by the DPS in their own county. The birthplace of the Faye Bell Harris Amendment or as locals call it, “Elmer’s Law” will not assess a parolee with illegal drugs, a major drug habit,  ”a shotgun in the trunk” and now going straight back to prison when his Parole Officers find out about his arrests. Why- Cherokee County Texas couldn’t imagine Brandon Robertson as the slightest danger to society.

Cherokee County can’t even put into effect the laws sponsored by its State Representative, State Senator, district attorney, sheriff, Postmasters, attorneys and other fools and liars willing to sign on to the actions of violent offenders in their own custody.
On April 6, 2008, three weeks before the slaying in Marion County, Brandon Wayne Robertson was stopped and arrested in Cherokee County Texas by a patrolling DPS trooper.  Again, Robertson was busted for felony drug possession (crystal meth) along with a concealed weapon and transported to the Cherokee County Texas Sheriff’s Department.  TDCJ parolee and ex-cop Brandon Robertson spent one comfortable evening in Cherokee County jail and was released the very next day by Cherokee County authorities on two $7500 bonds. Robertson was arraigned on April 7, 2008 by Cherokee County even though he was on parole with multiple felony convictions. Despite his cited parole violations and criminal status as a convicted felon, Robertson was freed to go back to transporting his drugs in and around Rusk and Cherokee counties, while his case was postponed indefinitely.

Brandon Wayne Robertson’s connections to his former employers in the Rusk County Sheriff’s Office and those within Cherokee County, TX are all too apparent. These two adjoining East Texas counties are the choice for local crystal meth traffickers, often disgraced former peace officers such as Robertson, who have cut deals with their former employers to continue manufacturing and distributing narcotics into the region.
Hopefully, this debacle of Cherokee County Texas allowing an armed and dangerous parole violator out of jail to go out and take the life of a DPS officer, a father, brother, husband and dedicated East Texas lawman, hopefully this will finally open the eyes of the US Attorneys’ Offices operating in the region. It is long past time to hold Cherokee County accountable for brazenly operating against the intent of the law. Knowingly and willingly letting an armed and dangerous parole violator out THE NEXT DAY on a measly 2nd Degree Felony charge should be the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

How does a felony charge of drug and weapons possession of a parolee justify only a $7500 Bond? That means Robertson only had to put up a couple of hundred dollars to a Bail Bondsman for felony possession. An inquest into the shooting of Trooper James Burns is pending by the Department of Public Safety and concerned citizens of Trooper Burns’ hometown Linden, Texas in Cass County. Concerned citizens and media types interested in the truth should not focus on Robertson’s girlfriend who may or may not have helped him evade arrest for 2 days. They should focus on how Cherokee County Texas views the judicial and legal system and how they collectively wipe their asses on the letter of the law. Interested parties should focus on how a municipal judge repeats every lie that is fed to him by his attorney, the Cherokee County District Attorney. The lie being that “excessive bond would be unconstitutional” in an arrest, booking and ‘receiving’ of a parolee caught with drugs and a gun. The fact is Cherokee County simply wanted to purloin Brandon Wayne Robertson’s bond. So they avoided notifying Robertson’s parole officers; a parole Robertson had been absconding for several months.

Cherokee County, TX pretends it never happened and never saw Brandon Robertson in their neck of the Piney Woods. Cherokee County wasn’t interested in a parolee’s travel permit status that would have barred him from legally traveling to their good little Christian community to peddle crystal meth to truckers and bored cops. Instead, they would rather lie through their teeth about the Judicial Process of parole revocation. Brandon Robertson was only buying himself time with the two Felony bonds he posted in Cherokee County on April 7, 2008. A drug addict parolee facing going back to prison would logically have made him more dangerous to the next DPS Trooper or sheriff deputy that cited him for absconding his parole conditions, according to Cherokee County’s own actions.

 As far as Brandon Robertson taking his life to avoid prosecution, had his parole supervision been in Cherokee County, Texas, he’d be back out on bail the very next day after blasting his way out of a speeding ticket. Hell, the District Attorney’s office could split the guy’s Life Insurance Policy and move into the deceased’s house. Good riddance to Brandon Robertson and his ilk. The sun won’t be shining where he’s going. Unfortunately, his type of bad seed has become all too common in East Texas.

The media should blame Brandon Robertson first for being a dirty stinking crackheaded police officer, and that he went on to become a bonafide drug dealer. They should blame Cherokee County Texas secondly for keeping this drug addict on the streets to kill a peace officer with a wife and 5-month-old baby girl. Where was “Elmer Beckworth’s Law” when it came to denying this violent repeat offender’s bail? Where was Cherokee County’s legal expert when it came to denying bond to a felon with a 20-Guage shotgun and SPEED in his system and snortin’ it in all in his vehicle? And simply calling in the TDCJ authorities to incarcerate a crystal meth user on parole? Cherokee County Texas is both criminally and civilly negligent in giving Brandon Robertson a ‘get out of jail for $15000 worth of drug money’ card.

Sounds like Rocket Science to the crystal meth capital of East Texas.

Our condolences go out to Trooper James Scott Burns’ widow and family. We hope that Mrs. James Burns and family file a successful Wrongful Death suit against Cherokee County Texas and prevail. God knows the law would be certainly on her side, regardless of a sympathetic US District Judge trying to keep a corrupt small town Racketeering Project going for decades to come. Don’t forget to subpoena the DPS officers who arrested Brandon Robertson on April 6, 2008, Mrs. Burns. We are certain they would have a story to tell on how Cherokee County authorities conspired to deliberately drop the ball. The EDITOR would recommend one of the fine Federal Civil Rights attorneys practicing in the Northern East Texas Federal District who advertise on this blog.

1 in 30 children in Cherokee County Texas are investigated by Child Protective Services

…while local officials celebrate April’s “Child Abuse Prevention Month.”

 

Cherokee County TX:

According to an April 9, 2008 Cherokeean Herald article, Cherokee County Child Protective Services (CPS) investigated a staggering 433 child abuse allegations in the year 2007.  Only 18 children were removed from their homes and placed in foster care. A small number compared to statewide statistics, however the 2000 US Census indicates that 25.8% of the 47,000 residents in Cherokee County Texas are under 18-years old.

                          25.8%  X 47000  = 12126 minors

                              433 : 12126  = 1 : 28 ratio

                                    or  approx. 1 in 30 

 

There are 15,700 households with children in Cherokee County TX also according to the 2000 US census.

This means over 1 in 500 households in the county have been visited by CPS.

 

This means over 3 % of the households in Cherokee County TX have had some type of alleged abuse.

 

 Not a good number for any Cherokee County TX official pretending to be a “victim’s rights” champion. The Cherokee County Criminal Docket can certainly attest that a tiny fraction of these cases actually saw the light of day. Meanwhile, a related article cites that Cherokee County officials responsible for the statistics are in fact observing a self imposed “Child Abuse Prevention Month” during the month of April. A celebration of sorts led by County Judge Chris Davis and attended by the District Attorney and County Attorney’s offices. 

 

Our invited State Representative and State Senator all gather on April 9th for a photo op to express their solidarity with the Cherokee County district attorney and county attorney offices to celebrate the county’s overblown abuse statistics. Forgetting about their other districts’ drug and child porn arrests, e.g. Rusk County, stinking corruption and local sex offenders tooling around the courthouse on probation given by Elmer Beckworth and associates. No moratorium needed to cleanse the region of rampant child porn and drug dealing by law enforcement; a ribbon cutting ceremony will rally voters back into a mental slumber.  

 

Remember, they care so much about children that they believe probation is acceptable to every and all child molesters arrested and living within the county- well, those related to the right official.

 

The fact is the first, second and third cousins of Cherokee County’s “officials” have gotten away with sexual assault of minors for decades. Because the Cherokee County Sheriff Department ignores the reports and the current District and County Attorneys only prosecute non-relatives of Cherokee County’s “officials.” Cherokee County citizens do not need to be made aware of the child porn epidemic in its schools or the high incidence of incest occurring under their noses.

The folks are probably wondering why rapists are recruited to patrol the streets of Jacksonville, TX  a la Larry Pugh. And the audacity of the Jacksonville Texas police department to print that the JPD recruiting policies have changed for the better. And racial profiling is all of a sudden “nonexistent” despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars the City of Jacksonville has paid in civil rights abuse settlements. “Nonexistent” because complainants disappear into the Angelina National Forest. Have city officials forgotten all those racial discrimination class action lawsuits?

The folks are probably wondering how for decades a Rusk ISD drama teacher can take students to overnight and out-of-town Theater Camp, while simultaneously trading in child porno on the Internet. That is Rusk Texas high school teacher Harold  “Bo” Scallon , who pleaded guilty to his child porn collection in federal court Tuesday April 9, 2008.

Most importantly, the taxpayers are probably wondering why Sex Offenders are walking around town on probation given to them by the District Attorney.

Cherokee County’s District Attorney Elmer Beckworth has consistently given probation to child molesters whose victims were as young as 1-year-old baby girls, all the while the local Cherokeean Herald and Jacksonville Daily Progress have swept the incidents of incest and statutory rape under the proverbial carpet. What can the taxpayer expect when neither of the two local Cherokee County papers printed the fact that the US Postmaster Herbert Michael Dominguez in the Alto Texas Post Office was sentenced this year “for stealing over $27,000 in money and stamps” ?

The local CPS claims to have investigated over 400 abuse allegations last year alone, in a county with a little over 12000 minors. If that is the case, why doesn’t the County Court at Law docket reflect it? It’s not because the abuse wasn’t reported, it is because the victims were ignored by Cherokee County officials as usual. Because these officials spend taxpayer money promoting themselves as victims by bleeding the county coffers and local businesses dry with frivolous Personal Injury lawsuits.

Cherokee County would rather solicit the hiring of an extra “mental health” deputy via ACCESS grant money, knowing it is MHMR’s policy to have 2 deputies present during the transport of an unruly mental patient. How many mental health commitments and out-patient “shepherding” duties does a county of 47000 have each year to justify what a staff of deputies are already required by law to perform? They certainly aren’t investigating child abuse.

400 out of 12000 children have possibly been abused while the Sheriff Department is going to hire another deputy to sit on his or her laurels and help the Jail Coordinator eavesdrop on inmates’ payphone calls.

That means in 2007 over 3 % of Cherokee County’s children may have been neglected, abused or worse. A statistic Cherokee County should be ashamed of. And apparently they are:

They all got together and had a big ol’ ribbon cutting ceremony on the Rusk Texas courthouse steps in an attempt to ‘Fool ‘em All Over Again’ for the month of April. If they know the truth makes them look bad, as in the preventable murder of Faye Bell Harris in 2003, then taxpayers can expect to see their officials in full regalia on the courthouse lawn, telling everyone “the world is actually flat.” And pretending to care more about victimized and helpless children than protecting their collective government paychecks.

Read the Cherokee County TX court dockets for a comparison of actual CPS child abuse cases reported, and those Elmer Beckworth, et al threw in the courthouse dumpster. Next year they’ll be smart enough not to let CPS report its local abuse statistics. Now that’s Awareness to rally around.

 

[courtesy of the Rusk TX Cherokeean Herald  4-09-08]

 The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS) is observing April as Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month.

 http://cherokeecountytexas.blogspot.com

Cherokee County TX sues employers while enticing more business. Nacogdoches jailer sentenced for child porn. Smith County officials investigated by DPS and Rangers.

Jacksonville, Texas:

Several national and internationally owned companies, such as Alliance Data Systems and Astro Air have divested their businesses from the county due to downsizing and corporate reconstruction. The following Personal Injury lawsuits were filed in the last 4 years against Jacksonville TX based Astro Air in Cherokee County’s 2^nd district court:

 

• Civil Docket; Case 2004030190; MORALES, EULALIA vs ASTRO AIR, INC.
  
• Civil Docket; Case 2004030218; LAWSON, CARROL vs ASTRO AIR, INC.
  
• Civil Docket; Case 2005030170; RESENDIZ, TERESA vs ASTRO AIR, INC.
  
• Civil Docket; Case 951000794; ROBERTS, ARTHUR vs ASTRO AIR, INC.
  
• Civil Docket; Case 96600493; MEADOR, CYNTHIA vs ASTRO AIR, INC.
  
• Civil Docket; Case 98200091; ABERNATHY, RICHARD vs ASTRO AIR, INC.
  
• Civil Docket; Case 98500399; KUYKENDALL, TANYA HIGHT vs BAILEY, PATRICK JAMES, ASTRO AIR, INC, et al.
  

Meanwhile, the wife of Jacksonville Texas Mayor Pro-Tem was indicted for stealing over $150,000 from the Rusk Texas city hall and the US Postmaster in Alto Texas was sentenced for stealing over $27,000 in postage, before paying it back. The latter receiving 1-year adjudicated probation in federal court, while the former has had her case postponed in hopes she too, can sell her recently acquired assets if in fact she is found or pleads guilty.

Nacogdoches Texas:

Nacogdoches correctional officer Michael Paul Kennedy was sentenced March 13, 2008 to 97 months federal prison for soliciting and distributing child pornography. Former jailer Michael Kennedy, 32 of the Nacogdoches Sheriff Department had been arrested last year at his home in Nacogdoches, Texas according the Texas Attorney General press release on that date. His arrest video and others can be viewed at the Texas Attorney General website.

 Michael Kennedy, former Nacogdoches TX jailer

Smith County Constable Henry Jackson’s Tyler based private security firm, Fail Safe Security Agency, is under investigation by the Texas DPS. The DPS issued a search warrant on Constable Jackson’s home based upon Jackson and his firm’s expired licenses required to operate a security business. The Tyler Paper reports that Constable Henry Jackson’s security business employed deputy constables who were paid on county time and wearing Smith County uniforms, while simultaneously working security. A special prosecutor was assigned to the case by the Smith County District Attorney’s office.

 

The Texas Rangers have also been investigating Smith County Sheriff Deputies, according to the Tyler Paper for using jailhouse inmates to work on officers’ personal property. Four (4) Smith County TX deputies facing felony charges for the misappropriations were fired from the low risk jail facility on Tuesday March 18, 2008. 12-year veteran deputy Lt. Gary Lile, Brandon Langston, Jeff Hudnall and Benjamin Hicks were terminated. The charges stem from inmates gathering scrap metal for recycling, rounding up stray livestock on rural roads and the sale of these proceeds not being reported. Instead the deputies pocketed the monies.

 

Amidst the investigation, on Thursday March 27, 2009 Lieutenant GARY LEE LILE, 57, took the coward’s way out and committed suicide at his Lindale TX home. The Smith County Justice of the Peace told the Tyler Paper that Lt. Lile had suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest.

 

In neighboring Rusk County, Lieutenant Fred Dunlap committed suicide in the exact manner, under similar circumstances last year. The officer shot himself in the chest, even though Lt. Dunlap was not the focus of a Federal Civil Rights investigation. Chief Deputy Dusty Flanagan, aka Daniel Oscar Flanagan, age 37 of Henderson TX was sentenced to 2 years federal prison for the assault of a handcuffed suspect he and Lt. Johnny Leon Davidson, Jr. questioned in Flanagan’s office. Lt. Davidson admitted to writing a fraudulent police report of the beating. Flanagan was sentenced on Wednesday March 26, 2008 after his guilty plea in 2007 in Federal Court. Rusk County Sheriff Deputy Kenneth Calvin Martin also pleaded guilty during this time for possession of child pornography.

Quoted from Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith regarding the more recent Lt. Lile investigation,“They knew the rules, they knew the regulations and they knew the law. There’s no excuse for it.”

 

A stark contrast to southern neighbor Cherokee County whose misuse of the District Attorney funds and county equipment has been going on for decades. And those caught being relocated to other parts of the county and/or the malfeasance being not just ignored, but lauded by those at the county seat. Cherokee County bulldozers and employees working on private property, making improvements with taxpayer dollars, is an all too common sight during the dog days of summer. Ever see a county bridge on a private driveway 1500 feet from the Farm to Market Road? Or county trucks laying gravel leading up to a judge’s hunting camp? Or state witnesses being paid for by the insurance pay-out of a murder victim, as in the 1990 Cherokee County case: State vs. Terry Watkins.

Jacksonville Daily Progress August 23, 1990  

http://cherokeecountytexas.blogspot.com/    

 

 

 

 

City of Rusk Texas bookkeeper indicted for embezzling $150,000 of government funds; wife of City of Jacksonville Texas Mayor Pro-Tem, Councilman District 1.

Rusk Texas:

The Cherokeean Herald reports on its online March 12, 2008 issue that Rusk, TX city bookkeeper, Doris Robinson, wife of City of Jacksonville TX councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Hubert Robinson, has been indicted by  a Cherokee County TX grand jury for stealing over $150,000 from the Rusk TX water department. 
 

City of Rusk Texas bookkeeper Doris Robinson

Mrs. Doris Robinson worked at Rusk’s City Hall located at 408 N MAIN ST as the city Permit and Billing Clerk until she was promoted to City Bookkeeper in February 2006. Prior to taking office the article cites, Doris Robinson allegedly embezzled water department monies over a 2 year period. An unnoticed theft of upwards of $150 thousand in a city with the population of 5000 citizens. The Cherokee County TX grand jury met the second week in March 2008 and Mrs. Robinson’s indictment was not reported by the District Attorney’s office.  The Cherokeean Herald reports it after the go-ahead from the District Attorney.

At printing The Jacksonville Daily Progress also has not printed the fact the wife of the city of Jacksonville’s Mayor Pro Tem had been indicted.  Councilman Hubert Robinson’s wife posted bond on Monday March 10, 2008. Mr. Robinson is an active member of the historical Sweet Union Baptist Church located in Jacksonville Texas.

Councilman Hubert Robinson, Jacksonville TX (District 1)

After one year of misdirections, it is high time a grand jury was seated that was not designed to prolong the case into the millennia. The EDITOR doubts there will ever be a costly and embarrassing embezzlement trial; Doris Robinson will no doubt be granted immunity for spending the last year busily trying to pay back any missing funds, in restitution. Isn’t that always the way it always works when Cherokee County’s version of Christians get caught with their hands in the taxpayers’ coffers?

Alto Texas US Postmaster Herbert Michael Dominguez paid back nearly all the $27000 he stole from the post office and for his federal crime, Postmaster Dominguez gets to keep his federal pension if he successfully completes his one year probation sentence. Handed to him in late February 2008 by US District Judge Michael Schneider in Tyler, TX, because Dominguez was “such a good person who had never been in trouble before.”

 So when Cherokee County’s version of “dignitaries” commit federal crimes, citizens will only get a glimpse of it in the Tyler TX newspaper 100 miles away.

And it came to pass. Because the whole world is going to be reading about it here.

Rusk,TX police officer rapes Rusk ISD student; on probation and on the lam. Alto, TX Postmaster steals $27,000 from local Post Office. Rusk, TX teacher indicted on child pornography.

Rusk Texas:

City of Rusk TX police officer, and former Cherokee County Sheriff Department jailer,  Christopher “Chris” Michael Hennessy was handed a 10 year probation sentence by Cherokee County TX District Attorney Elmer C. Beckworth, Jr. in 2004 after Hennessy sexually assaulted a female 15-year-old Rusk ISD student. Officer Hennessy absconded his Sex Offender Registration after later being charged with distribution of crystal meth and unauthorized use of a motor, according to a February 28, 2008 article in the Jacksonville Daily Progress. Rusk TX officer Chris Hennessy was also under investigation by the ATF for possession of explosives.

Officer Christopher Michael Hennessy was apprehended in Houston, TX by the US Marshals Service on Wednesday February 27, 2008. Hennessy had been working in the Houston area under an assumed name. Refer to Cherokee County Texas Criminal Docket; Case 16121 ; Indecency/Sexual Assault of child-Felony
THE STATE OF TEXAS vs HENNESSY, CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL
Filed 05/23/2005 – Disposition: 11/17/2005 Deferred adjudication
2nd District Court, District Clerk, Cherokee County TX.

And Criminal Docket Case 16681; Case 16682 in the 2nd District Court, Cherokee County, TX.

Obviously Hennessy’s deferred adjudication wasn’ t good enough for the rogue officer; deferred adjudication is a plea bargain agreement, as it is defined, that is not an formal guilty plea and is NOT a conviction. The charge remains on the defendant’s record, however all licensing, bonding and law enforcement, i.e. political affiliations remain untarnished if probation is served (or reduced by a sympathetic district judge).

Hennessy refused his Sex Offender Registration in Cherokee County, TX and violated his slap-on-the-wrist probation. The Cherokee County district judge would have terminated his probation; however Hennessy would have to first register as a Sex Offender. Officer Hennessy was 24 in 2004.

Elmer Beckworth believed Officer’s Hennessy’s reputation was more valuable than the raped 15-year-old Rusk Jr. High student by offering DEFERRED ADJUDICATION probation. Of course, the Cherokee County District Attorney is not held accountable in the local media for any of the COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES of Chris Hennessy’s plea bargain; allowing Hennessy to continue the crystal meth trafficking into Beckworth’s hometown, possible bomb making and who knows what else before Officer Hennessy was nabbed by the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force.

Alto Texas: US Postmaster Herbert Michael Dominguez located in the tiny Alto, TX post office stole $27,000 worth of postage stamps and federal money orders, converting them into his own personal use. Similarly Dominguez’s indictment and crime was not reported by any Cherokee County Texas newspaper. It took the Tyler Texas paper to report the local indictment of Postmaster Dominquez in its February 27, 2008 issue. Dominguez had been being paying most of the stolen money back in restitution. U.S. Federal District Judge Michael Schneider in Tyler TX gave the thieving Postal Service agent 1 year adjudicated probation.

What do these cases have in common? A Rusk TX police officer who molested a Jr. High girl and an unsupervised Postmaster in Alto TX both received deferred adjudicated probation for their crimes, both State and Federal. Both get to keep their TCLEOSE licenses and government pensions. Probation given in order to keep the sorid mess under wraps. Even after raping the coffers and thus taxpayers of their most precious commodity: their children and their privacy.

Criminal activity within Cherokee County’s post offices has been documented for years. In August 1997, DPS officer Joe Don Abernathy was lucky enough to have DWI and unlawful discharge of a weapon charges dismissed after an employee in the Rusk Texas post office smashed his vial of blood on it way to the Garland, TX DPS lab for alcohol tests.

Aug. 21, 1997 Cherokeean Herald p.1

Aug. 21, 1997 Cherokeean Herald p. 10A

 

A local Rusk TX woman named Linda Lanier had filed a complaint against Trooper Joe Don Abernathy in Feb. 1997 after Abernathy had chased the Lanier family down the back roads of Hwy. 84 in the middle of the night. The complaint stated the off duty trooper had shot at the Lanier family vehicle, on their way back from Boosier City, LA. The Rusk PD arrested Abernathy on U.S. 69 and found rifles, a shotgun and beer cans in Abernathy’s pickup. Abernathy requested a blood sample be drawn in lieu of a breathalyzer, and the sample was literally dropped off in the mail. The test tube containing the DUI arrest evidence was destroyed by the Rusk TX Postal Service. A common tactic observed with the roles have been reversed and a DPS officer cites a Cherokee County deputy for DUI. And of course the Cherokee County TX District Attorney’s office never took Abernathy’s “deadly conduct” case in front of a grand jury.

Trooper Joe Don Abernathy accepted Cherokee County’s County Attorney’s offer of reckless driving as was placed on minimal adjudicated probation. The horror the Lanier family endured the night of Feb. 9, 1997 has been long forgotten. Trooper Joe Abernathy presently works as a Senior Recruiter for the DPS office in Tyler, TX.

The personal use of public works by those assigned to protect and serve Cherokee County Texas has been covered up for decades. In a 1995 Cherokeean Herald article, Cherokee County Sheriff James Campbell denied his deputies partake in monitoring and recording inmates’ jailhouse pay phone calls. Complete with an incredulous and concocted story on fictitious inmates crank calling witnesses from their cellblocks.

June 1, 1995 Cherokeean Herald p.1

 

A Jan. 5, 2002 Houston Chronicle article from the AP highlights the State’s TDCJ policy of listening in and recording all jail inmates’ conversations, as a required duty performed by all Texas penal systems -and those like Sheriff James Campbell who are charged with doing so. In 1998 the TDCJ policy altered to allow privacy between inmates’ phone calls and their attorney-client privileges. That policy has certainly been ignored by the Cherokee County Sheriff Department and District Attorney’s office.  Cherokee County  also tells its citizens the Sheriff Department does not record its DETCOG established 911 calls either.

Jan. 5, 2002 Houston Chronicle p.39A

The June 5, 1995 Cherokeean article citing the “telephone harassment” of bored Cherokee County inmates and how the poor Sheriff can’t “listen in” and put a stop to it – why that is a sharp contrast to the 12th Court of Appeals affirmation of one inmate’s recent threatening phone call to his wife. The case Kevin Wade Conner v. The State of Texas–Appeal from County Court at Law of Cherokee County was heard in Tyler on February 29, 2008 based upon the  ‘Dial H for Harassment’  scenario that actually took place. Kevin Conner was arrested in 2006 for public intoxication and during his one phone call to his wife, threatened to beat her up. Conner was subsequently charged with telephone harassment and the audio tape recorded phone conversation admitted into evidence at his trial, Cherokee County Court at Law (trial court case # 45,593).

Kevin Conner’s attorney filed an appeal in Tyler, refer to Case # 12-06-00311-CR, filed on 8/26/2006 in the 12th Court of Appeals, challenging the legality of tape recording the plaintiff’s phone call and admitting it into evidence.  The opinion states:
“The erroneous admission of the recording in question is nonconstitutional error. See King, 953 S.W.2d at 271. Nonconstitutional error that does not affect the substantial rights of the defendant must be disregarded. TEX. R. APP. P. 44.2(b). Such an error does not warrant reversal unless it had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict. See King, 953 S.W.2d at 271.”

The 12th Court of Appeals doesn’t get into the messy legality question as to whether it is legal or unconstitutional (nonconstitutional error / admission of egregious evidence, i.e. illegally gained evidence) to record jailhouse phone conversations. The deputy testified he “overheard” the threats that were decided not to be just “hearsay.”  And the Texas penal system allows jails to monitor the inmate accessible pay phones. That was good enough to admit the audio recording into evidence and convict Kevin Conner with ”telephone harassment” based on the testimony of an eavesdropping deputy. Even though Sheriff James Campbell told the local newspapers in 1995 that the “law prohibits my deputies to listen in on” jailhouse phone calls. The Appellate Court says in 2008 recording and monitoring the Cherokee County Sheriff Department’s phone calls are “pursuant to the jail’s standard policy, the call was recorded without notice to either Appellant [Kevin Conner] or Conner [his wife].”

June 1, 1995 Cherokeean Herald p.1

Wiretaps in the Liberty County TX courthouse, circa 2001:

Similarily, in 2001 Liberty County Texas Constable Craig Houghton  and Liberty Courthouse maintenance chief Thomas Neal Williford pleaded guilty to illegally wiretapping the courthouse telephones. County Commissioner Pct. 4  Toby Wilburn allegedly provided recording devices for Williford, et al to place on the phone lines of political adversaries within the courthouse. Constable Craig Houghton and Thomas Williford both were sent to 3 months in prison, and Commissioner Wilburn was acquitted in Nov. 2001 on wiretapping. Commissioner Wilburn claimed Constable Houghton had obtained a warrant from the court; the local jury bought the explanation of providing the phone surveillance equipment. Despite the fact that only the Department of Public Safety, the Texas Rangers and the FBI are the only entities that can legally monitor phone lines.

Prisons and jails are required to monitor inmates’ calls and terminate the surveillance during conversations with their attorneys. Constable Houghton and Thomas Williford were sentenced to 3 months federal prison and 2 years probation according to the Houston Chronicle. Both claimed the illegal phone taps were installed to “rid the courthouse of theft and corruption.”

Rusk Texas:

Longtime Rusk Texas ISD drama teacher Harold Earl “Bo” Scallon was indicted by a Federal grand jury in Tyler on Tuesday March 4, 2008 for possession and distribution of child pornography. The FBI raided the home of Harold Scallon in Jacksonville in July 2007 on a federal warrant based on a tip and ongoing investigation by the Longview TX police department. Scallon’s computer was seized, and alleged to contain illegal images of children engaged in sex. The Rusk Texas drama coach faces 20 years federal prison and fines for each count of distribution of child porn.

Rusk Texas teacher H.E. “Bo” Scallon

According to a March 5, 2008 Tyler Paper article, federal prosecutors and the Rusk ISD superintendent’s office refused to acknowledge that Harold “Bo” Scallon was employed in the drama department up until the time he was indicted in federal court for possession and distribution of child pornography. Local newspaper deliberately refer to the theater teacher as “former” and “EX-teacher” even though Harold Scallon never formerly retired from the Rusk Texas school district. Conflicting dates of the alleged cyber crime are being reported. 2007 Rusk ISD Valedictorian Kinsey Gresham acknowledged Mr. Scallon’s presence in his students’ and fellow faculty members’  lives during her June 2007 graduation speech. “Bo” Scallon had worked over 30 years for the Rusk Texas Independent School District. In March 2007 another Rusk Texas and former Jacksonville ISD teacher, Social Studies’ Brian Edward Basse, was indicted for indecency with a minor, i.e. one of his students.

Out of county company representatives and those seeking open-records in the Cherokee County Texas courthouse may have experienced the frequent violation of the Texas Public Information Act. That is those requesting court records having to sign waivers or being asked for their own personal information before the court employee provides the requested documents. An article in the Dec. 30, 2002 Houston Chronicle titled “East Texas public data often elusive” shows East Texas law agencies were the least helpful and most confrontationale when it came to providing citizens access to open records.

County governments out of a 14 county survey conducted over a 4 month period in 2002, where shown to be cooperative in complying with the State’s open records laws. However, East Texas sheriff or police departments “resisted producing records 68% of the time” and complied with the State’s timeline for requests only 38% of the time. One researcher from the journalism department of UT Tyler was told she had to “earn the right to see documents see requested.” This is, unfortunately, the majority mindset of East Texan law enforcement. 

The Public Information Act states that any and all information regarding an arrest record and the name of the complainant are to be made available to the inquirying public. Texas law enforcement records are not exempt from public disclosure. Nor are property records at the Cherokee County courthouse.

Companies contemplating setting up operations in greater East Texas should consider the light sentencing for sexual assault of a minor by police officers, embezzlement of postal services and city government funds, road rage by a veteran DPS officer and the bonafide illegal wiretapping of constables and commissioners. The articles may be hidden in the news archives and the back of the minds of the residents; however they are the forefront of daily operations in Counties steeped in corruption. The disparate sentencing of minorities versus law enforcement caught red-handed and judgments against national companies should be thoroughly investigated by any business testing the job market in Cherokee County Texas. Company business calls will be intercepted, company mail rifled through by post office employees, their profits stolen via lawsuits and most importantly their children will be at risk from Cherokee County’s Rogues Gallery of child molesters enjoying their commuted probations.

As an April 29, 2007 Houston Chronicle article published by the Seattle Post titled “Civil Rights investigations decline as focus for FBI” states: for federal agencies keeping watch over rogue police officers, there has been in the last 5 years a 2/3rds drop in investigations of abusive police officers and hate crime purveyors. “You’re going to have officers getting away with, in some cases, literally murder.” Especially in East Texas where victims are portrayed as “nutcases” and/or transient drug addicts by the local media. And their stories buried with their remains in a nearby National Forest.

District Attorney gives probation to Rusk, Texas infant molester. Driving while black in Jacksonville. Is this why smart companies are leaving the county, or is it the Slip-And-Fall free for all?

plea-bargain (v.) :
To make an agreement in which a defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge and the prosecutor in return drops more serious charges.

Whistlin’ Dixie in the 21st Century. Solved murder bad for Angelina County Sheriff? Tyler man gets bail revoked for 1st violation.

It’s 2008, and the Cherokee County, TX media is still doing their darndest to gloss over the arrest record of its law enforcement and abject failure protecting its scant 47,000 citizens. This observation is not the result of a “fishbowl effect” of a disproportionate number of arrests of Cherokee County law enforcement, as compared to larger counties. Sure one constable gets sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, but Cherokee County only has four precincts. Sure one patrolman gets sentenced to 17 years in federal prison, but the city of Jacksonville, TX has only ten cops; and 1/2 of them have been investigated by the FBI in the last 5 years. The fact is the corrupt political structure of the county is so ingrained, things are only going to get worse the more the US Attorney’s office scrutinizes the region. These people won’t be giving up their government paychecks without a fight and their favorite tactic is to use the local paper to frighten minorities contemplating federal civil rights lawsuits.

Cherokee County honored its Civil War traditions in early December 2007 with a local Sons of the Confederate Veterans hoopla complete with a General Robert E. Lee award, President Jefferson Davis award and General Stonewall Jackson award going to the most lilywhite Rebeller. Candidates for the Abraham Lincoln and M.L.K. award were apparently not invited. This ain’t just a Civil War memorial, you know what I mean?
View the Alto, TX Confederate States of America chapter on the internet.

There is no thinly veiled agenda in the local ‘heritage defense league.’ Or as local chapters of the SCV call it: “The Northern War of Aggression, the true history of the South.”
But then again there is no historical reenactments or literature provided either at their clandestine meetings on taxpayer property. Other than the local Cherokeean-Herald insulting their black readers with a blasé contention that the Confederacy shouldn’t be indentified with the KKK. But then again, telling their readers who the members of the White Brotherhood are. Printing this redneck rubbish solely for the Martin Luther King holiday and upcoming Black History month. And displaying it at the city of Alto, Texas Public Library Conference Room.

To outsiders this type of Rebel Rousing would appear to be typical East Texas race baiting. However to the large number of black Americans living in the area, it is designed to have a deeper psychological impact. The message is crystal clear.

Without delving back to the turn of the century, we will take a brief look at Cherokee County, TX retrospectively over the last 18 months. Go down the list and tell yourselves Cherokee County, Texas isn’t corrupt. What a great year for the taxpayer.

Cherokee County Texas (2006 to 2007):
Constable Pct. 3 Randall Thompson pleads guilty in March 2006 for possession and distribution of 108 grams of crystal meth after ‘evading’ his duties as district court bailiff. Thompson was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after his ‘resignation.’ Thompson had been appointed as deputy constable by Cherokee County commissioners and had been elected Constable Pct. 3 in 2004. The Texas Association of Counties (TAC) gives a description of Constable Randall Thompson’s duties he perform while manufacturing and distributing meth.

• subpoena of court witnesses;
• acting as bailiff for the 369th District and officer of the court;
• process of service and executing judgments;
• patrolling;
• assisting criminal investigations and drug raids; and
• acting as executive officer for the Justice of the Peace.

You, the lowly taxpayers are supposed to believe that after being elected as Constable, Thompson never worked a single day in the Rusk, TX courthouse or Hodges Unit. You are to believe that in a town that small, where everybody knows what you ate for supper the night before, that :
NO ONE in the district court or county commissioner’s office knew that Constable Thompson had been arrested for drug dealing -
AND they didn’t know where Thompson was before his federal arraignment?

As a matter of fact, a Failure to Appear hearing in the 369th district court was convened a day before Randall Thompson’s federal indictment “Because they hadn’t seen their bailiff for 2 years…” A constable who was appointed by Cherokee County commissioners in 2002 then elected to office in 2004, all the while working as a correctional officer and bailiff in Rusk, Texas. It would take a court hearing to remove an elected official, however Cherokee County was apparently pleased with Constable Thompson’s service until the feds caught him dealing crystal meth and indicted him. Pleased enough to keep paying his salary and lawyer fees. But of course they never met the guy, had him over for dinner or took him to the deer lease—hell, he didn’t show up for work for 2 years… Must’ve been driving that “Cherokee County” marked SUV down to the valley each week to deal drugs “to pay his child support.”

Constable Pct. 3 Randall Thompson circa July 2005, tells KLTV Channel 7 Tyler-Longview-Jacksonville, TX in an expose’ on how he spends his gas money ”dealing with illegal dumping, serving warrants, making traffic stops and arrests.” Looks like he’s on his way to work.

However, hours before Thompson’s federal indictment for drug dealing, it became more expedient for the district court and county commisioners to distance themselves from their guy they had appointed in 2004 to serve their wealthiest precinct. It is this type of perpetuated lying that is intrinsic in Cherokee County Texas political culture. Decades of the same nonsense reprinted and linked to here.

Anderson and Cherokee County crisis centers (located in Palestine and Jacksonville, TX) lost state funding in September 2007 along with losing private grant funding and federal funding in November 2007. Due in large part to the city of Jacksonville’s handling of the Larry Pugh rape attacks on Cherokee County women. In December 2007, the centers were temporarily saved when $159,000 was granted through a discretionary fund via the governor’s Criminal Justice Division and lobbying efforts of state Senator Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville).

State District 3’s former senator Drew Nixon (Rep.-Carthage) and his run-ins with law have also been swept under the carpet. Nixon retired his state senate seat in 2000 after being charged with soliciting a prostitute in Austin and was indicted by a Panola County grand jury in July 2007 for fixing the Panola County Fresh Water Supply District board election. Drew Nixon’s latest state charge is official oppression for his “abuse of office.” However, District 11 State Representative Chuck Hopson’s (Rep.-Jacksonville) 2002 campaign treasurer once married to a convicted burglar apparently wasn’t an issue for the papers, either.

TX State District 3

In more horror stories in the month of September 2007, former decorated Jacksonville, TX patrolman Larry Pugh sentenced to over 15 years in federal prison for rape and retaliation, also linked to the skeletal remains of one of his missing federal complainants.

convicted Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh

New Summerfield hired Michael Meissner as Chief of Police in March 2007. Meissner was subsequently fired for his lack of current TCLEOSE certification and continues to seek employment in law enforcement in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.

Michael Meissner and friends [courtesy Ellis County Observer]

Local media interpret the hiring of Meissner as a simple mistake in a formal background check, placing the blame on Meissner for not reporting his silly little TECLEOSE reprimands. Why would Meissner need a peace officer license when interns for the district attorney’s office can walk up and down the hallways of the Rusk, TX courthouse pretending to have passed the State Bar exam?

$150,000 stolen from the Rusk, TX Water Department by a city employee in March 2007. The community was lied to about the embezzlement case going to a Cherokee County grand jury in September 2007. In December 2007 the Rusk City Council was still waiting for a resolution of the case and an indictment. District Attorney Elmer Beckworth’s excuse was a potential conflict of interest with a member of his October 2007 grand jury being related to the case…as if that was the first relative being seated on a Cherokee County grand jury before. Only when the Texas Rangers are involved in the case.

In April 2007, the city of Jacksonville, TX settled a police brutality suit with victim Larry Hinton after Hinton was beaten, tasered and his teeth kicked out during 2004’s Tomato Bowl riot. Hinton had been acquitted of “misdemeanor charges of interfering with an officer’s duties” after the 2004 High School homecoming brawl. Misdemeanor charges that resulted in Mr. Hinton and his pregnant wife being kicked, beaten and falsely put on trial. Interfering with a police officer’s arrest is actually a felony; hence the protest on the Rusk courthouse steps in January 2006.

Mr. Larry Hinton not only had his teeth kicked out and his pregnant wife beaten up, but  HE was placed on trial by Cherokee County Attorney Craig Caldwell. The charge of  “interfering” during the race riot based on the report of a police officer out on federal bond for rape AND during which the affiant (Jacksonville TX police officer Larry Pugh) was stalking and disposing of his federal complainants.

Apparently the word of a rapist facing 144 months in federal prison is worth more than a black man and his pregnant wife’s, enough to waste the taxpayer’s dollars to tell the county what a good job Pugh and others did starting the 2004 Tomato Bowl riot. View Larry Pugh’s March 2007 federal sentencing on the Department of Justice press release NOT published by Cherokee County media: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txe/news_release/news/EDTX_PUGH030107.html

However, the Jacksonville Daily Progress did report that Cherokee County Sheriff Deputy Regina Battley had the excessive force suit against her, filed by the Hintons and a female victim, dismissed in December 2006.

Civil Rights Class Action Suits include Sandra Rene Roca, Tonya Burns, Debra A Williams, Felicia A Colbert, Della Tyler, Wanda Wilson and Felicia Mosley v . Larry Pugh, the city of Jacksonville, Texas et al, No. 6:2007cv-00081(US Dist. Ct., E.D. Texas, Tyler Division, February 15, 2007). These women are the other handful of Cherokee County rape victims seeking settlements with Officer Pugh’s employers. Never read about them anywhere did you?

Yes, 2007 has been a typical year for Cherokee County, Texas but nothing to cheer about. Local officials hiding under the pretext of false legal statutes and pretending they never hired nor worked with the above mentioned criminals. A sharp contrast to the Fort Worth, TX police department who fired 2 police officers on December 20, 2007. Officers Craig Murrah and David Babb are separately accused of spanking a female detainee and Babb for groping the 9 year-old daughter of a co-worker. Babb had been indicted in September 2007 for the fondling; Murrah is awaiting the Tarrant County grand jury and had prior indecency complaints.
Based on the “merits of the case,” Fort Worth police chief Ralph Mendozza terminated both policemen prior to their trials. Cherokee County would have promoted the pair.

In other corrupt news for the beginning of the New Year.

Jacksonville, TX:
The Eastern District Federal Grand Jury in Tyler indicted Jacksonville, TX resident Kenneth Dale Kern on January 11, 2008. Kenneth Kern was True Billed for theft of social security money and government property. The indictment alleged that Kern fraudulently accepted $32,000 in Social Security disability benefits between 2002 and 2007 and did not disclosed to government administrators his job with Jacksonville employer Nicky Joe Tarrant. Kenneth Kern also faces 10 years for making false statements to federal agents. Cherokee County, Texas media outlets, probably due to Kern’s Jacksonville employer being related to members of the Jacksonville, TX ISD school board , the captain of the Jacksonville Fire Department and a Rusk, TX correctional officer, have not reported Kenneth Kern’s federal indictment. Kern apparently had worked for the Tarrant family business for years while simultaneously receiving government disability checks.

Upshur County, TX deputy indicted; Deputy Richard Louis Bridgewater age 29 was indicted in December 2007 on 5 counts of child indecency. The deputy had admitted to inappropriate contact with an 11-year-old girl. Bridgewater is being held in neighboring Titus County jail as a “safety precaution.” He had a brief stint with the Overton, TX and Big Sandy police departments. Bridgewater now faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

Smith County, TX:
Suspended volunteer firefighter Austin Harden age 17 was arrested December 24, 2007 for posing as a fireman at a house fire on FM 2493. Harden had also been arrested in August 2007 for impersonating a police officer.

Hale County, TX:
A prison guard at the Wheeler Unit in Plainview, TX has been indicted for murder by a Hale County grand jury on December 24, 2007. Jose Rodriguez was charged in the death of inmate Paul Ray Judia after Judia died from head injuries sustained in his cell.

Kilgore, TX:
Gregg County correctional officer Eric Sanders age 24 arrested December 11, 2007 for passing illegal drugs to inmates in the North Jail facility.

Rusk County, TX:
Chief Deputy Daniel “Dusty” Flanagan in Tyler Federal Court Wednesday January 9, 2008. Flanagan had his sentencing hearing postponed. Chief Deputy Flanagan and Lt. Johnny Leon Davidson Jr., both pleaded guilty in July 2007 for assaulting Shawn Wright will in custody. The former sheriff deputies and Rusk County are facing excessive force civil suits by Wright AND sexual harassment suits by a former female deputy. U.S. District Judge Michael Schneider postponed Flanagan’s federal sentencing (he is facing 10 years for the police brutality against Mr. Wright) until the civil matter of restitution is resolved. Flanagan and Davidson concocted fraudulent police reports to cover their actions.

In neighboring Cherokee County, TX , the assaulting police officers would have been promoted and the fraudulent police statements held up as irrefutable proof by the district attorney’s office as in the case of Mr. John Brown of Alto, Texas. Officers with a history of excessive force are even endorsed to run in elections as Cherokee County Constables now that have proven their mettle in federal court. With a few minor drug busts under their belts and proving their willingness to violate the law can get some cushy jobs. Remember, the Trade Winds motel in Jacksonville, TX provides “anonymous” tips to Cherokee County deputies; not an illegal phone drop placed on a motel room. Tips are called “anonymous” by Cherokee County deputies when phone lines are illegally monitored.

Then again, they may be knocking down your door when an “anonymous tip” from the jailhouse leads to a 911 call being generated in a lightning storm. That’s called intelligence gathering; it’s “against the law” for Cherokee County sheriff deputies to “listen in” to private citizens phone calls, not inmates in the county jail. Therefore the sheriff’s office can have it both ways- deny they monitor jailhouse payphones and tell the FBI a jailbird gave them information.

Henderson County, TX:
Mayor Gene Bearden of Log Cabin, Texas (pop. 733) under investigation for personal use of an EXXON credit card. The case had been investigated by the Texas Rangers and handed over to the Henderson County district attorney.

 Gregg County, TX:
Correctional officers Johnny W. Adair and Michelle Parvin were arrested Monday December 17, 2008 for passing banned tobacco products to inmates in the Gregg County jailhouse. This comes after the arrest of fellow Gregg County jailer Chris Sanders one week earlier for delivery of contraband to prisoners. All three were terminated after taken in for questioning according to Sheriff Maxi Cerliano.

Tyler, TX:
Tyler police officer Scott Bradley resigned after a DWI charge on December 5, 2007. Apparently Officer Bradley had been out drinking that night with a visiting Los Angeles detective scheduled to testify in Smith County court. Officer Bradley was arrested at the scene after crashing his car into a telephone pole. He was later placed on administrative leave, and then subsequently quit his position. Bradley was a decorated cop and was recognized by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in May 2007 for his service breaking up a nationwide methamphetamine ring. Officer Scott Bradley was part of a federal drug task force operating in Tyler, Texas.
Had Officer Bradley been operating in Cherokee County, TX to the south, then he could have had a relative in the Rusk post office smash his blood sample on its way to the Austin DPS. His drunken melee’ would have never made the local papers either. In fact oodles of accolades would have spilt from the Cherokeean Herald pressroom.
No one would be the wiser….

Nacogdoches, TX:
Tnisha Steadman, correctional officer for the Nacogdoches County sheriff’s department was fired and arrested Tuesday January 8, 2008 for passing a cell phone to an inmate. Ms. Steadman’s posted her bond at $5000. Sheriff Thomas Kerss commented on having to arrest one of his staff members, “We don’t put ourselves above the law.”

Lufkin, TX:
Angelina County Sheriff candidate and Lufkin police officer Trent Burfine has posted on his campaign website autopsy pictures of a slain local teenage girl. Pictures he says proves the mishandling of the 2003-2005 murder case by Angelina County investigators. The graphic crime scene photographs have caused controversy in the sheriff race, however officer Trent Burfine was within the state’s open records laws when the murder case was closed.

Officer Burfine contends on his webpage Angelina County Sheriff Ken Henson potted a murder investigation of the slain teenager after autopsy reports indicated toxic levels of crystal meth present in her system. Even though her body had extensive bruising and no needles or other indications of an overdose (or suicide) was discovered. The photos show how sheriff investigators contaminated the crime scene. The Lufkin police department took up the murder investigation, resulting in multiple convictions in 2005. A murder Angelina County refused to even consider. This attitude is shared in neighboring Cherokee County, Texas when it comes to investigating the death of undesirables. Why spend the money? It is unfortunate that Sheriff Henson decided it wasn’t in his 2003 budget to investigate the murder of Candice Alexander. Neighboring Cherokee County shares the same mentality as when 2 Jacksonville, TX women went missing prior to Larry Pugh’s federal trial. They collectively treat these women lower than roadside litter, and candidate Burfine should be commended for his exposure of this malfeasance. No murder investigation was needed up in Jacksonville, either. Of course no one up there ever challenges the established mindset or incumbents.

Case comparisons of the month-
State vs. Michael Frater (Smith Co. 2007) AND State vs. Michael Harris (Cherokee Co. 2005)

Tyler, TX:
On November 15, 2007, 47 year-old Tyler, TX resident Michael Edward Frater went on trial for “threatening” his estranged wife Ethel Gibson Frater. Unlike the case State v. Michael Harris in Jacksonville, TX, the Smith County district attorney’s office filed a motion to revoke Frater’s bail on an unrelated probation violation after Frater allegedly made one threatening call to his estranged ex-wife. In the similar scenario a few years earlier in Cherokee County, Michael Harris was out on felony bond for arson and continued to threaten, harass and trespass onto his ex-wife’s property. Mr. Frater had his bail pulled immediately; Mr. Harris had his bail reset during multiple hearings at the Rusk, TX courthouse, while simultaneously being escorted to drug treatment at the Rusk State Hospital.
 

Michael Edward Frater

Mr. Frater’s bond was NOT set and reset and reset as Cherokee County did for Michael Harris; Mr. Frater was also not in custody or under State supervision. Frater had been paroled in 2006 from Tarrant County for a felony DWI and denied threatening his ex-wife.
Frater was put on trial by the Smith County district attorney for felony retaliation. Michael Frater was acquitted by a Smith County jury on November 16, 2007. Michael Harris continued his escalating domestic violence and murdered his ex-wife Faye Bell Harris of Jacksonville in 2003.

Michael Harris also accepted a plea bargin of life in prison and the family of the deceased was told Harris’ bonds just couldn’t be rescinded until Texas law was changed. Cherokee County blamed the 4th Amendment of the United States and the Texas constitution for deliberately resetting a drug informant’s bail, allowing Michael Harris out on the streets to eventually murder his former wife.

   

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Blaming the Victims. Murder trials postponed to showboat March primaries. Where shady dog kin lie.

Sardis, TX:

Cherokee County, Texas and others have smeared another homicide victim at the hands of Cherokee County deputies. Namely former Lufkin detective Allen Wallace who was gunned down over his mother’s grave in Sardis, TX in September 2007. Police blog sites describe Wallace as ‘unstable’ in an article sent in and titled “Cherokee County (Texas) Deputies Shoot and Kill Nutcase Former Lufkin Police Officer Allen Lee Wallace over his Mother’s Grave” Typical Cherokee County, TX propaganda; Mr. Wallace was not a “nutcase.” The above mentioned article cites that in 2000 the retired detective had a verbal confrontation with a home builder that was investigated by authorities. However it does not cite the fact that the contractor Wallace was accused of threatening, according to Angelina County district attorney investigator Ron Brandon, was sentenced in 2002 on deceptive practices charges and placed on 10 years probation for mishandling Wallace’s construction account.

Friends and loved ones of the Allen “Stinger” Wallace family also paint a different picture of the gunned down retiree, suicided at the hands of Cherokee County, TX deputies. This is what is called playing both sides of the fence: passing the case onto the Texas Rangers for a verifiable examination of the shooting, yet smearing the deceased as a “nutcase.”

Similarly, in 2005 Jacksonville, TX resident Jennifer Hester was described as “drunk and passed out in her apartment complex parking lot” after a night of “celebration” after graduating from nursing school. She was struck by a vehicle and killed steps from her front door, the driver No-Billed by a Cherokee County Texas grand jury and the homicide investigation potted. Shows you how easy it is to get off when you’re related to the right people in Cherokee County, TX. If the driver of the vehicle had, let’s say, run over an actual transient drunk sleeping under a bridge in Dallas County, then certainly charges would have been levied: involuntary manslaughter.

Former Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh’s rape victims were also portrayed as homeless drug addicts by the media. No inquest needed for their timely disappearances in the Angelina National Forest prior to Pugh’s federal trial.

Convicted Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh

Apparently it’s easier to smear victims in the media than it is to follow the letter of law.

Anderson and Cherokee County, hand-in-hand and out of sync with the rest of the region, will be losing out in $50,000 federal grant monies to its Rape Crisis Centers due to an “error on the application.” The Crisis Center of Anderson and Cherokee Counties was seeking extra funding made available for peripheral expenditures for state operated rape centers. The same centers had their state funding completely cut earlier this year. By losing the funding, these local crisis centers can return to not being able to collect a local rapist cop’s DNA, while their compromising policies and procedures remain hidden from government oversight. Losing all state and federal funding is nothing to be proud of. Articles posted on the same day show that Cherokee County, TX is more interested in its stray dog problem, than with funding for female victims of sexual assault.
That is of course if the problem is illegal dog fighting or killing neighbor’s cats, then the Cherokee County Texas county attorney and sheriff can ignore the problem and reassert PETA’s position that Cherokee County’s Project Got to Fool ‘Em Everyday (when your relatives get caught) is hiding behind fictitious legal statutes. Excuses excuses.

Rusk, Texas: 42-year-old Gordon Mathis sentenced to 8 years in federal prison for child porn in Tyler’s federal district court.

Gilmer, Texas: Upshur County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Louis Bridgewater, 29 from Big Sandy, has been charged with child indecency after an 11-year-old female came forward with allegations that the deputy had inappropriate contact with her multiple times at his home. Deputy Bridgewater admitted to the charges during an interview with the Texas Rangers. The molestation had been going on for over a year.

Palestine, Texas: Owners of the fraudulent oil and gas investment scheme Caddo Creek Productions, Inc. were sentenced December 7, 2007 in federal court. Donald and Cheryl Douglas of Palestine, TX have to pay over $1 million in restitution to the victims they defrauded. Mr. Douglas faces over 3 years in federal prison; Mrs. Douglas was sentenced to 5 years probation. The Palestine, TX couple conned East Texas investors by claiming non-existent oil and gas drilling production and leases in the area, but used the money for personal expenditures. Mr. Douglas had been indicted on State charges in Anderson County, TX.

Jacksonville, Texas: Just in the nick of time, another murder trial for the Cherokee County District Attorney to champion, Bernie Lucas, 52, held police at bay during an hour-long standoff at his Jacksonville, TX home in October 2007. Lucas will be on trial for the murder of 43-year-old Shelia Gray, also of Jacksonville, who was found shot to death during the standoff.
Still no murder investigation into the missing federal witnesses against ex-Jacksonville, TX police officer and convicted rapist Larry Pugh, nor the witness’ remains found in the Angelina National Forest.

Terri Reyes (l) and Shunte Coleman (r) missing Cherokee Co. TX residents.

However a December 1, 2007 article in the Tyler Morning Telegraph shows that other state agencies are quick to charge potential murderers after the disappearance of citizens, even without a body covered in DNA. People go missing, suspects are arrested, and that is in counties other than Cherokee County, Texas. Prosecution witnesses go missing before a decorated Jacksonville, TX police officer’s federal trial; instead they are reported as homeless drug addicts that deserved the euthanasia.

Rusk, TX: For December 2007, it is again reported that convicted murderers Buenka Adams and Richard Cobb had their appeals rejected, to keep the trial fresh on the minds of those voting in the Cherokee County primaries (and to make it appear Cherokee County tried more than 1 murder case in the last 3 years)
The Tyler Morning Telegraph : reports in December 2007 the same thing that was reported in June 2007: death row inmates Adams and Cobb have lost their appeals. Nothing has changed since then; no federal appeals on the horizon for Richard Cobb. So the Tyler, TX news agencies get a quick blurb to go over the same Cherokee County trial that took place 4 years ago? The article reports, without a timeline or date, that Adams and Cobb lost their appeals in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Adams was denied a writ of habeas corpus that his attorneys filed in November 2007.

Cherokee County Texas media reported in June 2007 that both Adams and Cobb lost their direct appeals in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The end. So every 3 months up to March primaries, reports of the same rejected appeals to give the impression the Cherokee County TX district attorney’s office is hard at work? The point is Buenka Adams and Richard Cobb’s latest appeal was lost in June 2007. No date of the rejection is provided by staff writers of this article that is reprinted every time they are told to.

The fact is Texas death row inmates Beunka Adams and Richard Cobb really lost their last appeal 6 months ago and have been sentenced to death. Their execution dates have not been set yet. Both Richard Cobb and Beunka Adams have depravity points of 21 according to the American Judicature Society and certainly deserve to die by lethal injection. So report that when it happens.
The murder rate in Cherokee County, TX unfortunately for those seeking “victim’s rights awards” is 1000% lower than neighboring counties. 1 murder reported in 2004 and ZERO homicides reported in 2005 according to City Data.

death row inmate Beunka Adams

Beunka Adams and Richard Cobb were convicted of robbing a Rusk, TX convenience store, kidnapping and assaulting two female employees, then murdering a third male hostage.
The above-mentioned trial of Beunka Adams and Richard Cobb took place in 2004. An Anderson County jury sentenced Adams after a change of venue sent the final phase of the trail to Cherokee County’s sister jurisdiction.

In October 2004, the now defunct Dogwoods Trail Narcotics Task Force indiscriminately arrested 72 Anderson County, TX residents during the failed crystal meth roundup of the century. Same Tulia tactics used, resulting in the shooting of an unarmed black man wanted on an unrelated though outstanding marijuana arrest warrant. If defendants are black or indigent, no evidence needs to be reviewed by Cherokee County or Anderson County juries; they are presumed guilty. It’s the “hang ‘em high” mentality that can’t be shaken easily after decades of corruption and racism ingrained in the region. And rest assured, these innocent people’s appeals never make it to local papers. Only when appeals are favorable to incumbents, are they reported ad nauseum. If the district judge makes a ‘judicial error’ then the case itself will not be published by the 12th Court of Appeals and the precedent hidden from legal research. And let’s be honest here: East Texas prosecutors don’t have to prove anything when the jury is stacked with kith and kin.

Cherokee County, TX has not had a murder trial to grandstand since the Beunka Adams/Richard Cobb sentencing. Michael Harris of Jacksonville was given a plea deal after killing his ex-wife because his bail was set repeatedly for the same offense, the driver of the pickup that struck and killed Jennifer Hester also of Jacksonville was given a No-Bill, and Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh was only given 12 years concurrent state time on top of his 12+ federal years for rape and retaliation. Murders and homicides have taken place in Cherokee County since the Buenka Adams/Richard Cobb trial; however they are neither reported nor make it to a judicial hearing. But Cherokee County is gearing up another ‘once in a lifetime’ murder trial to make waves and the headlines with Bernie Lucas at the helm. And each step of the appeal process will be repeatedly reported as if it just occurred. To make it look it like everybody at the Cherokee County Texas courthouse is busy. Busy as cats in a litter box.

Rusk, Texas: In a county of less than 50,000, the reports on the Cherokee County, TX county attorney’s office is that the staff is ‘overwhelmed with case loads’ and had to hire an assistant county attorney. The article cites the multitude of Child Protective Services’ citations and Crisis Center protective orders being issued throughout the county. A good decision to hire an outsider to handle cases, this way Cherokee County judges can avoid being reprimanded for backlogging the local docket as they pursue their side jobs as visiting judges in other counties, you know, clearing mental health commitments out of their jurisdiction. Does the backlog of cases for the Cherokee County’s county attorney include the arrests made by convicted rapist and ex-patrolman Larry Pugh’s?

Last year, there was enough time for Craig Caldwell’s office to try Larry Hinton of Jacksonville, TX with misdemeanor charges of “interfering with Larry Pugh’s police investigation,” even though the charge is a felony. Hinton was acquitted in county court and settled with the city of Jacksonville, TX on Larry Pugh’s excessive force. Hinton’s wife was beaten and tasered during the Tomato Bowl melee and Hinton’s teeth kicked in during Pugh’s arrest. The Cherokee County district attorney’s office did not get their hands dirty on the Larry Hinton court case; they let Craig Caldwell take the credit.

Upcoming murder trials have been pushed back on the Cherokee County Texas docket, right in time for March’s elections. No real need to go out and buy election signs when incumbents are installed in their positions for life and they run against, well NO ONE. Cherokee County Texas rarely has challengers, even in opposite political parties, for Sheriff, Judge, County Judge and/or District Attorney. However, other neighboring counties actually trying to clean up the corruption in their respective agencies see more names on the ballot. And they don’t use murder victims to ham up the local media.

Henderson, TX: In Rusk County, after episodes of police corruption were exposed in the Rusk Co. Sheriff’s department, retired law enforcement vie for Sheriff of the beleaguered county.
The candidates pledge to clean up Rusk County, Texas after June 2007’s suicide of retiring Lt. Fred Dunlap, investigator Michael Davis’ insurance fraud conviction and Deputy Kenneth Martin’s child porn possession. In May 2007, Lt. Johnny Davidson, Jr. and Chief Deputy Dusty Flanagan pleaded guilty to sexual harassment of a female coworker. Current Rusk County Sheriff Glenn Deason has not filed for re-election as of December 2007. The issue of official oppression and political corruption is being openly addressed in the media and amongst voters.

Repetitious reports of the same murder trial that was settled in 2004, as in the Beunka Adams and Richard Cobb death sentence, won’t convince Rusk County, Texas voters to continue with the same old patterns of police misconduct and deceit. So if you are voting in the Cherokee County Texas primaries, make sure you avoid the booths that are serving ‘nature’s brownies.’
That’s the staple of life for the incumbents.

http://www.cherokeecountytexas.blogspot.com

369th Judicial District Court bailiff convicted on METH charges in Cherokee County, Texas

bailiff (n): A sworn peace officer and officer of the court that maintains order and security within the courtroom by assisting in the administration of court functions as directed by the judge and clerk.

 

To avoid confusion in the ongoing Nacro-drug trade of Cherokee County, Texas law enforcement, this US Department of Justice news release from January 2006 is posted here:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txe/news_release/news/thompson_moore.pdf
This is regard to Cherokee County Constable (Pct. 3) and acting court bailiff for the 369th Judicial District being arrested and convicted for intent to distribute methamphetamines. The headline should read “Officer of 369th Judicial District, Cherokee Co. TX, Sentenced to 10 Years for Intent to Distribute Drugs.”
Note to readers: this is not the Chester Kennedy (chief of police in Troup, TX) arrest, but the indictment of Cherokee County precinct 3 constable Randall Lee Thompson, 38 of Jacksonville, TX . The 60 year Troup police chief Chester Kennedy’s arraignment can be read at:
http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=156663 (AP) Chester Kennedy was found guilty on two counts in Nov. 2006 and sentenced a month later to 10 years. He was later “fired” by Troup, TX city council on a vote of “non confidence.” Kennedy was also taking drugs and money as bribes to cover up other crimes.

Troup, TX is on the border of Smith and Cherokee Counties.
 

This posting is in regards to Constable Pct. 3 and 369th District Court bailiff Randall Thompson. Constable Thompson was busted by the feds for distributing meth, unbeknownst to the Cherokee County District Court and Sheriff’s Department. This Law Dog’s salary was paid for and approved by the Cherokee County Commissioners Court. Constable Thompson was further employed by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, during his drug dealing stints, at the county Correction Facility, making ends meet as a jailer for TDCJ’s Hodges Unit in Rusk, TX. Thompson was facing 20 years in federal prison.

Of course in typical East Texas/Cherokee County fashion, the local media did not initially report that Constable “Randy” Thompson worked as a baliff for the Cherokee County District Courts found at URL:
http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/local/local_story_011111403.html

 

The aforementioned article indicates (if you can find it) that Thompson was removed from his post by Judge Bascom Bentley III for not showing up for his baliff’s duties. Probably didn’t know that Thompson was sitting in a federal holding block on a million dollar bond …A drug dealing bailiff that represented the 369th Judicial District and coordinated case loads with the Cherokee County District courts.

Several former members of the now defunct Dogwood Trails Narcotic Task Force have passed through the halls of the Cherokee County courthouse. According to the Rusk, TX city council minutes from February 2006 there was an ongoing need for the “Burn (sic) Grants,” i.e. Byrne grant money to clean-up the methamphetamine labs in the county. Constable Randy Thompson (Precinct 3) was busily doing his part in the drug enforcement arena at the Cherokee County courthouse for years, before Judge Bascom Bentley III and a fictitious hearing “fired” him.


The Jacksonville Daily Progress article dated January 11, 2006 is oblivious of the fact that the US DOJ had arrested Constable Thompson for drug dealing. The question is: how can that Thompson was “a no-show” for his bailiff assignment but salaried as a Hodge Unit jailer- missing his duties for over a month? For the trials and hearings he sat in on providing courtroom security?

We will post the outcome of the Randall Thompson federal appeals, if it is reported by the local media outlets. Latest posts from J’ville Daily Progress for March 6, 2006 was that Constable Thompson plead guilty to “possession/distribution of approximately 108 grams of pseudo-ephedrine, a component of methamphetamine.”


No mention of the fact that Randall “Randy” Thompson was the assigned bailiff for District Judge Bascom Bentley III ’s court.
NO more reporting can be found posted by local media on Cherokee County drug dealings. But a good picture and a sob story of underfunding in Precinct 3 ran in June 2005, featuring a healthy Randall Thompson pumping gas into a county vehicle, at his own expense:
 
www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3625355

Thompson’s quote is that he ” spends at least $600 a month on gas. But he gets only $150 from the county. That forces him to take at least $450 out of his own pocket every month.”

READERS: Be sure to read the article at URL: http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/local/local_story_011111403.html
where Cherokee County officials try to cover for the “missing” bailiff / constable, without acknowledging in print, that in fact Constable/Bailiff Thompson was incarcerated by the feds. Meth appears to be the drug of choice for East Texas law enforcement over the years. A March 28, 1991 article from the Cherokeean Herald shows a TDCJ Skyview correctional officer being arrested for conspiring to manufacture methamphetamines in his speed lab out in the Anderson County boondocks.

Click pic for larger image.
 

Cherokee County has its private methamphetamine users (found at U.S. Attorney media release on February 17, 2007 ) who do pose a threat to society, like this guy storing explosives in his home in Jacksonville, TX,
http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_40543.shtml
Arrests of this nature are published as the shining example of Cherokee County law enforcement, hard at work with federal agencies, actually putting a dent in the East Texas drug trade, instead of scoffing at the law and arbitrarily enforcing it.
However, a constable such as Randall Thompson that makes drugs for distribution, but is obviously not a drug user or addict, is apparently trying to hook members of the local community.

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Jacksonville TX city manager’s wife gets DUI. Vote for Prop 13 again?

Cherokee County Texas Blogspot is now on sister sites Technorati, the Austin American Statesman AND a contributing journal for Austin’s Burnt Orange Report.
Thanks for all the contributing articles and old newspaper clippings.

As years of news paper clippings show, insurance fraud is the get rich quick scheme most favored by Cherokee County, TX law enforcement and their families. Of course when they are caught no reports are circulated. In fact every opportunity to deny it is taken. A common tactic in local Cherokee County Texas newspapers is for officials to mention in passing an incarcerated ally, as if at the time of publishing they just saw him at the grocery store. Or they just scored a big buck or prize fish at the hunting club. Or name him on a list of ‘Who’s Who’ seen at the downtown Christmas festival. Even though they are doing time in prison. What is the efficacy of printing a bald face lie, when every individual reading it knows that the guy they’re talking about is sitting in prison?

Why do these representatives of the community publish demonstrative artificial announcements? What can possibly be gained for knowingly making patently false statements? The answer is manifold, but most importantly they must fool the locals (not within their circle) that their buddies haven’t been breaking the law for decades.
Another favorite ploy of officials is playing the victim and/or pretending to be the defender, while they themselves are the ones committing the crime.

Rusk, Texas: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Gordon Neal Mathis, 42 of Rusk, TX had his sentencing day in federal court for possessing child pornography, however his attorney did not show up and could not be reached. Mathis’ sentencing has been postponed. Cherokee County, Texas authorities seized his computers back in November 2006 after a 12-year-old girl reported being sexually assaulted by Mathis for almost a year.

The editor is certain the illegal images found on Gordon Mathis’ computer will appear elsewhere after being copied and stored by Cherokee County, TX law enforcement. Crime scene pictures ranging from suicides to burglaries are shared with local attorneys in an informal “open policy” forum. An “open policy” within the cult of confession, however not with out-of-town attorneys. No need to file a motion of discovery when everybody has the pictures of each other’s wives. It’s part of the culture of corruption in East Texas courthouses outside news agencies call “winning at all costs” which will be discussed later.

Tyler, Texas: Smith County correctional officer Kenya Bush, 25 of Tyler, TX has been indicted for conspiracy to commit capital murder and now faces trial in 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr.’s court. Co-defendants include Jonathan Toliver, 37 of Lindale, TX , and Toliver’s mother who allegedly bonded out a state witness out of jail in order to silence him. Smith County jailer Kenya Bush is accused of supplying a cell phone to Toliver and information on the confidential informant. Toliver had been under suspicion of manufacturing narcotics since 1997.

Toliver

Smith County’s undercover narcotics officers and a crack dealing CI testified at the Toliver trial.
On October 23, 2007, Johnathan “Bisco” Toliver received life in prison for his murder for hire conspiracy.

Kilgore, Texas: Pastor of the Gladewater Church of Christ, Larry Jackson, 54 of Kilgore, TX was arrested for sexual assault charges.

Pastor Jackson

Jackson is accused of assault and indecency with 3 girls all under the age of 10, occurring at the Church of Christ on West Clair St. in Gladewater, TX. He bonded out of Gregg County jail on $135,000 on October 11, 2007 and continued to preach during the detectives’ investigation.

Longview, Texas: October 11, 2007: Longview, TX psychiatric ward closed down for egregious acts, including sexual assault on minor patients. The Texas Department of State Health Services suspended for 10-days and revoked the license of the Acadia Pathways Psychiatric Hospital. Acadia housed over 2 dozens out patients, including elderly. On October 29, 2007 the Longview, TX based sanatorium was completely shut down amidst the allegations of physical assault of twenty eight patients and six employees.

Bullard, Texas: Douglas Wadrup, 22 arrested October 12, 2007 for having child pornography on his computer.

Nacogdoches County Jail: Another escape of an inmate Tuesday October 16, 2007
due to booking errors and open delivery gates. The inmate, 19-year-old Adam Christopher Stripling was captured 3 minutes later and has been classified as a flight risk. The jailer has been disciplined for the mistake.

Jacksonville, TX: Deborah Raissi, the wife of Jacksonville City Manager Mo Raissi was arrested in Smith County on October 14, 2007 for DUI and possession of marijuana. Deborah Raissi was traveling on Hwy. 69 at 3:30 am when she was stopped by patrol officers in Bullard, TX. Jacksonville’s Mayor Robert Haberle stands by the City Manager and states in the article that Mrs. Raissi’s drinking and pot smoking does not reflect poorly on the city. Forget about it… that was just an isolated incident. Wonder who sold her the bag of dope?

Deborah Raissi
TCLEOSE: On September 4, 2007 The Tyler Morning Telegraph ran an expose’ on corrupt East Texas law enforcement called “Breaking the Badge.” This article ran in tandem with several left leaning Texas bloggers’ (from the Austin metro area) comments and postings. The author Kenneth Dean of The Tyler Morning Telegraph lists the litany of police misconduct charges and convictions, mainly from the law enforcement operating in and around Cherokee County, Texas. The crimes range from sexual assault of women in police custody, drug dealing and rape. The article also cites the observations of Special Agent Peter Galbraith of the Tyler, TX FBI and TCLEOSE Executive Director Timothy Braaten. Namely, small East Texas towns with corrupt officers make the problem appear to be disproportionate than the rest of the country, and secondly these small towns don’t have the resources to hire good quality police officers.

A police officer such as Larry Pugh of Jacksonville, TX who has a history of official oppression and now a 12 + year federal sentence for rape and retaliation is not merely “unacceptable behavior.” The hiring of Michael Meissner this year to be the Chief of Police of New Summerfield, Texas was not just an ‘oversight’ or a slight ‘mistake.’ It is against the law to be a police impersonator. It is against the law to hire a police impersonator. There is no defending the hiring of a “gypsy cop” when you know the candidate is not a licensed peace officer.

Cherokee County Constable Randall Thompson did not just quit showing up for work while he was dealing crystal meth. The day before his federal indictment, the district court that employed him went into spin mode, and attempted to absolve themselves of Thompson, their bailiff and ally. District Court hearings, both civil and criminal, put Constable Thompson operating in the Rusk, TX courthouse all during 2006. That’s the point; not only is Thompson now in federal incarceration for 12 years for intent to distribute, BUT the Cherokee County, Texas media prints complete falsehoods fed to them from the district court. No retraction has ever been printed: Randy Thompson worked in the courthouse, Rusk TX’s Skyview Unit and patrolled Precinct 3. It didn’t take a court hearing to fire him—the Eastern Federal District of Texas did it by indictment.

A perfect example of “winning at all costs.” Got to fool ‘em every day.

In the age of instant background checks, there is no other conclusion to come to other than small East Texas counties deliberately employ police officers with less than reputable backgrounds. These men are recruited because of their pasts. These men are promoted because of their connections with the ongoing criminal elements in the Piney Woods. They are put in place because they are willing to violate the law and do the things honest police officers would not. Their bosses get paid to keep the ruse going ad nauseum. And they simply get a kick out of it. It is their character. Unlike counties such as Smith and Nacogdoches that terminate crooked officers, Cherokee County ignores the problem until the problem worsens and the Feds have to step in. Then they rush the media with preposterous stories on how they never associated with the perpetrator (didn’t even know where they were, a la’ Randall Thompson) even though they’ve worked side-by-side for decades.

Further reading of September’s Tyler Morning Telegraph article shows the point that has been missed. There can be no glossing over the police misconduct: it took the FBI and the US Attorney’s office to bring charges against the rouge officers. Only Smith County has supervision and a system in place to reprimand the bad officers. Rusk County and Nacogdoches County openly discuss their disciplinary actions against offending officers. Police misconduct incidents are simply swept under the carpet in Cherokee County, TX and/or simply not reported. All these crimes discussed within this blog are not isolated incidents; it bleeds over into the local school systems where many of the relatives of Cherokee County law enforcement scratch out a living. And because they hate the sunlight passing through the magnifying glass, sexual deviants are sheltered instead of ousted. A quick check of the DPS sex offender registry gives the names not reported by their relatives: 16 registered offenders in Rusk, TX; 49 in Jacksonville, 3 in Wells, 2 in Alto, 1 in Gallatin, 1 in Maydelle and 22 in Troup, Texas. Never read about all of them in the paper?

According to the AP, Texas is ranked No. 2 in the nation in the number of teachers disciplined for sexual misconduct with students. In small close-knit communities, sexual abuse and police misconduct can go on for decades when the perpetrators are related to elected officials. Most of these incumbents never face an opponent during the primaries, because challengers are blackmailed out of the race.

Houston Chronicle, March 2005: The Chronicle published an article based on the East Texas legal system where only a handful of attorneys practice criminal defense “and fewer still are willing to openly criticize the district attorney in the town’s tight-knit legal community. It’s a community in which intermarriage and blood ties abound…” The focus of this article was heavy handed tactics of Smith County prosecutors and excessive sentencing issues. In Cherokee County, Texas it’s not a matter of “winning at all costs” it is a matter of not losing at EVERY cost, no matter how long they drag a case out or what the price to the taxpayer. It is a matter of using law enforcement to harass those members of the bar association who break the code of silence and communicate with the US Attorney’s office. It is a matter of circling the band wagon when one of their own is arrested for DUI after nearly killing people in a drunken wreck on the city streets of Jacksonville, TX. It is a matter of employees in the Rusk, TX post office smashing a sample vial of blood being mailed to Austin, after a Cherokee County deputy is arrested by the DPS [or vice versa] for drunk driving and disorderly conduct. No test-tube, no test results for the Sheriff’s drinking buddies. It is a matter of pedophiles, rapists, imposters, drug dealers and murderers AND those who hire them given the responsibility of keeping Cherokee County ‘crime free.’

Does the Department of Public Safety ever receive anything from Cherokee County, Texas?
Other than recruits that can’t hack it being a disciplined trooper?
Certainly seized drugs aren’t making it to their proper and legal destination when Cherokee and neighboring counties don’t exist on the Department of Justice Fund Report (even though tiny towns do).
Yet drug seizures, raids and successful crackdowns alongside the DEA are routinely reported by the local Cherokee County, TX newspapers, as the September 10, 2007 seizure of 24 pounds of marijuana by local authorities and the October 4, 2007 arrest of an Anderson County fugitive. In their minds it doesn’t matter how many federal laws they violate, as long as a pittance of dope can be seized and divvied up.

Statewide and Rusk, TX: On November 6, voters have the opportunity to have wool pulled over their eyes again with another constitutional amendment on the ballot: Namely Proposition 13 which states the amendment would deny bail if a person violates “certain court orders” or is released on felony bond or in a case of family violence. Prop 13 allows a district judge to assess if a defendant poses a danger to the community or a further threat to a domestic violence victim and again deny them bail.
This ruse of denying a violent and repeat offender bail has been tried and tried again for publicity stunts. Voters have already approved the exact same ridiculous con in November 2005. And as the media cites, these amendments became effective September 2006.
Why do we need to vote on this sham of denying bond of violent lawbreakers again? Because the author of this garbage wants what the previous person(s) responsible for its creation: a sympathy vote and something to champion. If someone poses a threat, and keeps posing a threat, as did Michael Harris in Cherokee County, Texas’ 2003 capital murder debacle, then the Texas Constitution, the United States Constitution and every legal precedent for the last 150 years allows for the denial of bail. Hopefully, the Texan voter will be getting sick of this excuse making by deficient District Attorneys. Send a message to them—quit letting your drug-dealing informants out on the streets to murder their wives.
Michael Harris murdered his wife in August 2003 after his bond was granted multiple times by the Cherokee County Texas district court; Faye Harris even had a protective order against her husband, who was seeking drug treatment at the Rusk State Hospital.

Notice in the Texas Council on Family Violence statement for the year 2003, just 2 months prior in June 2003, Runny Session, 37 of Rusk, TX murdered his wife Tracey Moore and killed the couple’s 16-year-old son Randy before killing himself. Not one article about this murder/suicide ever appeared in the Cherokee County newspapers. Wonder why? Because of the deceased kinship to those working for Cherokee County. A similar murder/suicide in March 2007 of a couple from Jacksonville, TX (who had moved to the Beaumont area) received the same anonymous and ‘closed-lipped’ reporting.

Makes all the sealed indictments and plea bargains appear to be just a family affair – a Cherokee County tradition.

Certain public sites outside http://www.cherokeecountytexas.blogspot.com expire over time, namely the TDCJ inmate registry.

To open a new search session on the TDCJ Offender/Prison Inmate site, go to http://168.51.178.33/webapp/TDCJ/index2.htm 

The site also provides admission and release dates, including judgments, facility location and age/gender of inmates.

Child porn at Rusk ISD. Former Alto, TX coach busted for domestic violence. Death by Internet and Deputies. Escapee’s taped phonecalls lead to arrest of Nacogdoches jailer.

This posting covers : FBI investigates Rusk, TX teachers on child porn charges, former Alto ISD head coach Lucky Gamble arrested on domestic dispute and local Internet forums turn political.
The family of retired Lufkin, TX detective Allen Wallace calls Cherokee County Sheriff Department for suicide intervention – Wallace is shot dead in family cemetery. Lastly, a Nacogdoches jailer helps inmates escape and is later arrested after the Sheriff Department confirms inmates’ recorded jailhouse pay phone calls. Neighboring Cherokee County Sheriff denied his deputies monitor jailhouse pay phones in a 1995 news article designed as a smokescreen. Complete with a fictitious concerned citizen.

For the 3rd time this year, another Cherokee County Texas schoolteacher is under FBI investigation on child pornography and indecency charges as reported by the online Rusk Cherokeean. The longtime Rusk High School teacher’s name is being withheld by the local paper. His name is Harold “Bo” Scallon, Rusk High School drama teacher.

The Tyler Paper online reports that the first out of the three, a 34 year-old Rusk geography teacher named Brian Basee pled guilty to an improper relationship between a “teacher and student.” A Cherokee County grand jury indicted Basee last March for indecency with a minor. He will receive 3 years incarceration according to the Jacksonville Progress.  Also according to the Cherokeean article, a 23 year-old youth minister from Jacksonville, TX that was sentenced to 4 years for having over 600 child porn pictures stored on his computer. This is not just a male teacher problem in Cherokee County, TX.

In 2005, Shelley Allen a 35 year-old Alto, TX teacher’s aide was arrested for indecency with a student and sexual assault.
Because she is a member of the Allen family of Alto and Rusk, TX, local reporting never made it past her arrest. She was out on $30,000 bond. Her story dropped off the map quicker than the beating of Alto, TX resident John Brown by Cherokee County law enforcement.

Former Alto, TX high school football coach Drennan “Lucky” Gamble was arrested twice last week for domestic violence and DWI. Waco and Killeen TX authorities formed a police barricade around Gamble’s home in Falls County, TX after police were alerted to a domestic dispute.
Coach Lucky Gamble was Alto ISD’s head coach and athletics director from 1993 to 2000.
He lead the Alto Yellowjackets to several high school football victories during his tenure. He is currently an assistant football coach at Chilton High School in Falls County (between Waco and Temple). Gamble had a previous assault charge after beating his first wife back in 2003.

“Lucky” Gamble, Alto ISD athletic director 1993-2000

Cherokee County, TX perhaps a great place to raise a family, but definitely home school. To the north and towards civilization, Smith County Commissioners Court meetings are now posted on YouTube by County Judge Joel Baker. Some commissioners question the postings, in fear that internet users “can alter the broadcasts” or “edit” the recordings. At least the debate is for an open forum where the public can view the court meetings. Instead of behind closed doors in a private citizens’ and unelected people’s homes. The Cherokee County old bitty network is always in full propaganda mode, trying to distract the local population with on-going smear campaigns. However they are not as Internet savvy as the younger population who has access to this and other blogs. A lesson for those old worn out hags who do random postings ‘under the radar’ and ‘under the covers’ in local Internet forums. They could wind up like this guy: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/17/internet.death.ap/index.html?eref=ib_technology
Again, the lesson is limit your internet access and time on the computer. Its called “Internet addiction.” You people will die of exhaustion trying to cover up the illegal activity going on in your hometown Cherokee County, Texas. The Bill of Rights or Freedom of Speech has always been under attack in backwoods East Texas. The latest tactic is to have the local internet political forums shut down entirely by posting profanity and slander of non-news related subjects, under the guise of anonymity.
Then they themselves cry foul and try to have the entire discussion board shut down. Local officials do not want any open forum where people can discuss Cherokee County, Texas corruption; they want to control the subject matter. Since they can’t control public opinion on the internet, they are attempting to have it terminated internally by posting personal attacks at random chatroom members. Very Nazi-esque.

Note to subscribers: if you come across postings that do not agree with the Internet etiquette requirements listed in the service agreement, then you have found your East Texan saboteur trying to shut the public site down completely. It is the Cherokee County old wives club given the charge of shutting these Free Speech sites down. For solidarity’s sake they often attack one another under pseudonyms to create diversions of the ongoing criminal activity in Cherokee County, Texas. Their weapon of choice is venomous vitriolic personal attacks to mask the stench of corruption. Don’t be fooled. A quick check of their ISP address will give them away. Try this free online service from Geobytes, Inc.: http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm

In more intelligent circles, the Tyler/Smith County League of Women Voters will be hosting a panel of judicial experts Tuesday September 25, 2007.

The topic will be “The Texas Judiciary: Is Justice for Sale?” Specific examples should include Cherokee County’s district court employees backing of law enforcement guilty of rape, murder and drug dealing.

And for the unsullied and idealistic district court interns, fresh faced and out of law school : it will look better to have Church’s Chicken on your resume’ than Cherokee County.

The East Texas child porn epidemic:
Why the constant barrage of reports of child pornography coming from the Bible Belt in greater East Texas, eg. the Nacogdoches county jailers, Rusk school teachers, Rusk County deputies etc. ? This is highlighted in a Lufkin News article dated August 31, 2007 “Rusk County deputy pled guilty to having child porn.”
Henderson, TX cop Kenneth Martin, age 36, fired in April after a fellow officer found the images on Martin’s police cruiser computer. US District Judge Michael Schneider sentenced the former deputy to 78 months in federal prison on Tuesday September 18, 2007. Why is child porn the choice for so many East Texas law enforcement personnel? Is it a dangerous combination of boredom and the need to break the law?

Certainly the majority of these law enforcement officials and educators are not pedophiles. The answer: they are gathering a library of the most illegal thing they can find, including stockpiling illicit drugs in order to plant on and/or frame their colleagues when the time arises. Sexual blackmail has been the mainstay of Cherokee County politics for decades.  Some of the dumber ones are getting caught. They aren’t doing it for their own gratification—they are being instructed to. And sometimes they are probably successful in framing each other. Others collect the sordid images because they enjoy violating the law, plain and simple. The thrill of breaking the law is too tempting and easy to do for the caliber of people hired in law enforcement in these areas. The rest of them are child predators and rapists that need castration, chemical or otherwise. This criminal activity will continue in Cherokee County Texas because the established elected officials will continue theirs. Cherokee County police officers like Larry Pugh certainly saw his bosses illegally tape record suspect’s phone conversations and had the district court back him during his brutal actions during the Tomato Bowl riot of 2004. Even saw his bosses put a man on trial for “interfering” and “resisting” while Pugh kicked his teeth in. So he felt emboldened to go out and rape and dispose of his complainants.

Constable Randy Thompson saw innocent poor people get framed and their property seized, so he decided to crank up a meth lab to get more locals addicted. Chester Kennedy Police Chief of Troup, TX had the best of both worlds being on the dividing line of Cherokee and Smith County. He could steal evidence from both counties and never report it. Hell, the Dogwood Trails Narcotic Task Force got away with it for years.

If you can’t make a phone call to revoke the bail of a violent drug addict locked up in the Rusk State Hospital, a la’ Michael Harris in 2003, before he signs out and murders his wife, then there is no telling what you can get away with. Because the economy is so rotten in Cherokee County, a government job is one of the most coveted, and these good Christian souls will say and do anything to keep their mortgage payments. They will even resort to investing in child pornography, in order to extort each other. The Cherokeean front page article for Sept. 26, 2007 titled “TDCJ overtime boosts economy” tells the story why the economy is so poor for Cherokee County. The only viable source of income for the region is the Skyview and Hodges Unit and the article brags on the pittance (of less than $29,000 annually) a jailer makes. If correctional officers are the largest source of revenue for the area, it is easy to understand why these people resort to blackmail via drugs and pornography. The target is the majority of well intentioned law enforcement that uphold the letter of law and don’t deal in drugs. Other targets are unsuspecting citizens caught up in an irate and egomaniacal officer’s debauchery or boredom. The usual suspects are the ones who seek out the most attention with the most mundane and mediocre “drug busts” or acts of unsubstantiated heroism. With so much time on their hands, making barely enough salary to feed themselves, they begin delving into criminal acts to ease their boredom and frustration, i.e. tapping phones, child porn, doing drugs, cheating on their spouses, etc. etc.
Or in the case of Jacksonville, TX patrolman Larry Pugh, they resort to targeting and raping defenseless women to sate their small town power trips.

Footnote: Larry Pugh pled guilty to falsifying his guilty plea, tacking on a few more years to his 12 federal years for rape and retaliation.

federal prisoner and ex-Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh
 
Even though local media outlets do not immediately report the overtly corrupt behavior of the Cherokee County criminal justice system, some other not so distant newspapers will.
For instance, the report of local retired Lufkin detective Allen Lee “Stinger” Wallace, age 50, being gunned down in a “suicide”[sic] “altercation.” Wallace was shot in the head Monday September 17, 2007 over his mother grave in a cemetery on CR 2218 outside Rusk, TX. Cherokee County sheriff deputies were called to the secluded graveyard, the article begins:
http://www.tylerpaper.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007709200307

Wallace drew his weapon at the cemetery, and according to Cherokee County Sheriff James Campbell, shots were fired. Allen Wallace, a 23 year veteran of the Lufkin Police Department was killed at the scene by Campbell’s deputies. Sheriff Campbell comments he doesn’t know “who fired first,” and has called the Texas Rangers to “investigate.” Cherokee County doesn’t know “who fired first” but they do know the retired ex-detective was “suicidal.”

Maybe the gentleman was just having an emotion visit to his family’s cemetery plots. Nonetheless, this article didn’t make it to local Cherokee County media outlets the day it occurred, even though it happened on their doorsteps. If it looks bad, then don’t print it.

The Lukin Daily News reported the killing on September 18, 2007:
http://www.lufkindailynews.com/search/content/news/stories/2007/09/18/19/Ex_Lufkin_detective_dies.html
This article mistakenly repeats the nonsense of issuing an “autopsy” on Wallace to determine “who fired first.” That would be an issue for forensics to solve during the inquest; nonexistent forensics and no witnesses.With talking points freshly honed for public consumption, the Daily Progress reports on the shooting in their September 19, 2007 issue —minus the proper day the incident took place. The article begins the Sheriff Department’s “welfare concern” [sic] “began at approximately 1:50 PM…” Forget the fact the killing took place on Monday Sept. 17, not Wed Sept. 19. Apparently there are no courses in suicide prevention offered to Cherokee County, Texas recruits. The Cherokeean Herald online reports the failed intervention after the Wallace family supposedly called Cherokee County in fear Allen Wallace was going to kill himself.

Local Cherokee County media outlets never mentioned another police brutality claim that occurred in October 2006, the alleged excessive force of former Cherokee County Deputy Keith Gayle. Deputy Gayle arrested Kevin Yates in November 2004 for public intoxication and resisting arrest; Yates claimed he was roughed up unneccessarily during the domestic dispute call. Yates filed a civil rights lawsuit that was heard in Tyler’s US Magistrate district, naming Cherokee County, Deputy Gayle and Deputy Sargeant Jamie Beene as co-Defendants.
Mr. Yates lost his federal suit of $200,000 in damages and is serving a 3 year prison term on a failure to appear sentence before Cherokee County’s charges for the dispute incident were dismissed. Deputy Sgt. J. Beene had been a co-Defendant in the recent beating of Alto, TX resident John Brown, and too won his excessive force civil trial after a brutality “investigation”
by the Texas Rangers.
NACOGDOCHES, TX- Nacogdoches County, Texas correctional officer Hector Navejar, 24 was arrested Wednesday September 26, 2007 for helping 3 Hispanic inmates escape via an unlocked and/or malfunction door back in July. The escaping trio had led authorities on an extensive manhunt and to date 2 of the escapees have been caught leading to the arrest of 3 others in San Antonio who facilated their run from the law. One of the escapee’s sister, Laquisha Monque Tyler, 18, of Alto, TX was picked up by Cherokee County deputies for her part in helping her brother Marcuese avoid authorities.
“Authorities believe that Tyler provided her brother with transportation from Nacogdoches to Alto the morning of the escape and concealed his location from law enforcement officials.”
Efforts to locate her brother Marcuese Tyler had been ongoing throughout the state. Tyler may have escaped 9 hours earlier than authorities originally believed, traveled to Alto then Jacksonville, TX, and may be in the DFW area. Marcuese Tyler was a 2002 Alto High School graduate. He was apprehended in Houston County.

Correctional Officer for the Nacogdoches County jail, Mr. Hector Navejar age 24 now faces 2nd degree felony charges and has been arraigned.

The case of the escapees is non-eventful other than the fact it sheds the light on a common Texas practice of recording all inmates calls from the pay phones in the jail. A practice Cherokee County officials deny tooth and nail, because their phone tapping goes beyond the jailhouse and out into the city streets and rural backroads. Cherokee County has also denied that it records incoming 911 calls established by DETCOG in the 1990’s. A lie that has been repeated for decades, even in local newspapers.

The Nacogdoches jailer was caught because the inmates used the jailhouse phone to call Navejar and promised him illegal drugs for his cooperation in their escape. According to Officer Navejar’s arrest affidavit located at:
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/dailysentinel/pdf/nevajar_affidavit.pdf
“Jail phone recordings implicate the defendant [jailer Hector Navejar] by name and phone number. Jail phone conversation indicated the defendant was being paid off with illegal drugs. The cell phone mentioned in the call was confirmed by employee records.”
Apparently the Nacogdoches Sheriff Department has no problem admitting it intercepts and records phone calls in the Nacogdoches County Jail.

click above pic for larger view

Page 1 of defendant Hector Navejar’s arrest affivadivt :

Now that’s reporting the news accurately. It may look bad to Nacogdoches County, but the sheriff is openly trying to solve the problems in the jailhouse. He isn’t covering them up with lies, misdirection and fictitious “concerned citizens.” The bad apples are weeded out instead of promoted.

Cherokee County’s Sheriff James Campbell in a 1995 Cherokeean article, stated “The law prohibits my deputies to listen in (on phone conversations)” on the jailhouse pay phone. Even if one is allegedly making harassing collect calls out their cell blocks. But in 2007 it’s OK for the Nacogdoches County jail to record the inmates’ conversations?

From the Rusk, TX Cherokeean June 1, 1995 p. 1

Click above picture for full story:

Did Joe Evans, the former Nacogdoches County sheriff and current Cherokee County District Attorney’s Investigator monitor the jailhouse pay phones under his tenure in Nacogdoches, Texas? You bet. But the neighboring Cherokee County sheriff and his deputies would not listen in on anybody’s personal or business calls, even his own inmate’s they’re charged with monitoring? Must be that dang ol’ Patriot Act, retroactively. Apparently East Texas Sheriff Departments do listen in and record all incoming and outgoing calls from their jails. Why the misdirection in Cherokee County, Texas?

Is it supposed to be a secret that phone calls between defendants in Cherokee County jail and their respective attorney/client conference calls are recorded? Then sent over to the District Attorney’s office for further scrutiny? Countless county jails around the country admit to recording inmates phone calls and use the calls to prosecute contraband traffickers. Cherokee County Texas’ private conversation recording obviously goes beyond the jailhouse and out into the neighborhood. And they get a kick out of publishing fictitious “concerned citizen” stories when they are smoke screening the illegal activity of their law enforcement.

Now let’s look retrospectively at more recent
ARTICLES OF DIS-INFORMATION:
http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/archivesearch/local_story_006082510.html from the Jacksonville Daily Progress January 6, 2006,
regarding the “resignation” of Cherokee County Constable and bailiff Randall Thompson during his Federal indictment for selling meth to an undercover US agent. Ostensibly Thompson was feeling the pressure to resign for not showing up to work for over a month – he was sitting in a federal holding block not able to make his bail. The misdirection is that bailiff Randall Thompson was not participating in his district court duties prior to his indictment. Thompson was an officer of the 369th District court, though several accounts contend he did not serve as bailiff since June 23, 2005 http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/archivesearch/local_story_007151417.html (article dated January 7, 2006).
369th District Court documents tell another story; Thompson was an active participant in courthouse security and coordination. He disappeared for 6 weeks after being arrested by the Dept. of Justice. Another misleading article dated January 11, 2007 again states Thompson was shirking his constable and bailiff duties http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/archivesearch/local_story_011111403.html
It is unlikely the Cherokee County district court was unaware of Randall Thompson’s incarceration and indictment from the US DOJ press release dated January 12, 2006
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txe/news_release/news/thompson_moore.pdf
It appears ignorance was being feigned about Thompson’s whereabouts AND the fact that he was an active participant in 369th District Court activities and only abandoned his duties after his arrest. Thompson was sentenced to 10 years federal prison for possession and distribution of a controlled substance. His initial arrest was not reported by Cherokee County media outlets.

The fact is Randall Thompson was not a drug addict. Thompson job was to make crystal meth for sale and distribution by Cherokee County law enforcement in order to inflate the county’s drug arrest rate.

A’ la the now defunct Dogwood Narcotics Trail Psuedo- Task Force in Palestine, TX, also part of the 369th District Court. This in turn would guarantee more federal funding to Cherokee County, TX.
Last year’s articles were designed to make the public believe that Constable Thompson was not working for the district court since June of 2005.

More recently, the East Texas media has tried to put a pretty bow on and close the door on the Larry Pugh rape and retaliation case. They are aware that several of Pugh’s federal witnesses have disappeared and one key witnesses’ decomposed body was discovered in the Angelina Forest after ex-officer Pugh’s 12 year sentencing. Even the Tyler Paper paints a unsympathetic picture of Pugh’s rape victims as homeless drug addicts, wandering the alleyways and cemeteries of Jacksonville, TX http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20070910/NEWS01/709090330
The article goes on to cite the investigation of Pugh by the Cherokee County District Attorney’s office, but never asks “Why wasn’t Larry Pugh arrested by Cherokee County?” if all these allegations Joe Evans states he investigated were pouring in? Joe Evans states he checked into 30 other complaints in the county. Then he decided to contact the FBI when he had a grand epiphany?

No sir, Larry Pugh’s last victim -the recipient of a $300,000 settlement against Larry Pugh (in care of the city of Jacksonville, TX), she is the one who contacted the FBI after her complaints fell on deaf ears. After it all, Cherokee County District Attorney Elmer Beckworth gathered his 12 loyal grand jurors, indicted Pugh and offered him 12 years concurrent state time for screwing an “inmate.” No mention or investigation required for the multiple late night traffic stops and sexual assaults Larry Pugh conducted for Cherokee County’s ‘Driving While Female ‘ crackdown. After Larry Pugh was indicted and sentenced, then Pugh’s drug arrests were dismissed. Cherokee County continued to prosecute Larry Pugh’s arrests during the time he was out on federal bond and continuing to stalk his complainants.

And of course the Jacksonville and Rusk newspaper would never divulge the county resident’s name: Evelyn Lewis. Because of female resident Cherokee County woman with a home, a job and a stable household might impact decortated patrolman Larry Pugh’s reputation. As Elmer Beckworth later told the Tyler Paper “the possibility of planting drugs was higher (with Pugh) than any other officer, ” he said.

To win the trust of the Cherokee County, Texas taxpayer, they are to believe that a Constable did not show up for work for months for his bailiff duties and was terminated the day before he was indicted on federal drug charges. Of course Constable Randy Thompson still got his paycheck for the Rusk, TX Skyview Unit where he also worked as a correctional officer; he had a perfect attendance record up at Skyview. But he never coordinated any case loads in the 369th District Court;no absolutely not…he was nowhere to be found?

Meanwhile, Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh was pulling women over and raping them on the side of the road. Women whose complaints were not followed up on after reporting them to the local Rape Crisis Center and district attorney’s office. Not until the FBI got involved and made them ‘investigate’ Larry Pugh. But these women were just homeless drug addicts that wandered off into the Angelina Forest and never were seen again, according to local newspapers.

And that is going to win your trust back?

Rape and Perjury for Jacksonville, TX cop. Redneck Games. Nacogdoches Deputy facing child porn charges…Frontal lobes needed.

The Cherokee County District Attorney’s office has decided to charge federally convicted rapist Jacksonville patrol cop Larry Pugh with something. This comes after district attorney Elmer Beckworth predicted months earlier to the Jacksonville Daily Progress that Larry Pugh would merely “have to register as a sex offender” after his jail time. Following Beckworth’s suit of offering probation as plea bargain to sex offenders and the local media ignoring the sentencing.

It was decided after Larry Pugh’s exhaustive 2 weeks worth of plea bargains (no Federal appeal on the horizon) that it was in the vested interest of the little community to finally bring state charges against the rouge officer. Pugh buckled under the federal indictments and convictions, even though the District Attorney continued to seek charges against several of Pugh’s victims .

How long should we hold our collective breath for 369th District Court bailiff and Constable Pct. 3 Randy Thompson to have state charges levied on top of his 12 year federal drug sentence????
Something like that might actually make it into the local papers and no one needs to know about a Cherokee County district court bailiff selling crank to an undercover federal agent…..
I mean good ol’ Randy Thompson’s appeals haven’t been exhausted and there’s a thin chance he’ll win his appeal, unlike poor ol’ Larry Pugh. The bodies are starting to pile up.

Post script: the Tyler Morning Telegraph ran a two-part series on ex-Jacksonville, TX patrol officer Larry Pugh titled “One Bad Cop“ regarding 2 missing federal witnesses. Unfortunately, they portray Pugh’s victims as streetwalkers; secondly Cherokee County has had more than one bad peace officer. Wonder if an expose’ will be published on 369th district court bailiff Randall Thompson, convicted of intent to distribute meth…. Hats off to the Tyler Morning Telegraph for showing concern, yet following Pugh’s and the Cherokee County district attorney’s talking points. Larry Pugh was partly responsible for the Tomato Bowl riot at the Jacksonville high school homecoming in October 2004. After being assaulted by Pugh, Larry Hinton of Jacksonville was charged, tried and acquitted for “interfering with an investigation.” Hinton later settled out of court with the city of Jacksonville for an undisclosed amount. Larry Pugh’s last rape survior was awarded $300,000 with more federal law suits on the way.

The city of Jacksonville, Texas and the police department are facing numerous civil suits because of the actions of one out-of-control officer in their brotherhood and cult of confession.

The decomposing bodies of Larry Pugh’s complainants scheduled to testify at his federal trial also recently surfaced in the Angelina National Forest. Remember folks, as the former Jacksonville, TX police chief stated “don’t jump to conclusions,” even though Larry Pugh was hired directly from the Athens, TX PD amidst allegations and investigations of 20 other rapes.
Perfect man for the job of East Texas traffic enforcement in the wee morning hours. As the Tyler Paper online cites Pugh’s “exemplary police record,” and laments on how such a “good cop” with a wife and children could turn to easing his boredom in such a small town by tracking down AIDS infected drug addicts, just to have unprotective sex with them in dirty cemeteries.

Here’s the heads up: Larry Pugh, like those before him, sought out the most illegal thing he could do, short of child pornography, and get away with it every day. He got a kick out of getting away with it in front of his beautiful wife and children, so he could wipe his and Cherokee County’s collective ass on the law. The locals are to believe that Larry Pugh acted alone in disposing of his federal witnesses. The guy was out on federal bond and he was monitored. How can someone with a federal indictment have access to personal records of his complainants (located at the Jacksonville, Texas city hall) via the Freedom of Information Act?

No charges were ever filed on Officer Pugh by Cherokee County until he pled guilty in federal court and was sentenced. The Cherokee County media paint Pugh’s victims as “transients” and drug addicts, while feigning public sympathy, as in the Jacksonville Daily Progress articles citing the missing Shunte Coleman and Terri Reyes.

This is a common Cherokee County tactic propogated by the District Attorney’s office, a la’ the hit and run homicide of Jacksonville, TX resident Jennifer Hester  who, according to Elmer Beckworth et al, was drunk passed out in the parking lot the night of her nursing school graduation. Why didn’t Beckworth bother to convene a bonafide petit jury for the mother of a 2 year old? Elmer Beckworth, the city of Jacksonville and Cherokee County Sheriff James Campbell told the Hester family “they couldn’t investigate a homicide in a private parking lot .”
Instead they collectively claim Jennifer Hester was only a transient alcoholic. Just like they claim Larry Pugh’s rape victims are merely homeless drug addicts. Unfortunately, local media outlets follow suit and report nothing on the 9 other rape complaints.
Terri Reyes body was found in September 2006 after she was reported missing by her mother, during the time police officer Larry Pugh was released on federal bond.

Terri Reyes, missing – remains found in Angelina National Forest

Shunte Coleman, mother of two, went missing after leaving a friend’s home.

Shunte Coleman, missing

Both were potential federal witnesses against Pugh, while Pugh was out on federal bond between April 2006 and August 2006. We are to believe that Larry Pugh acted alone in his crimes and the locals hope the case is closed without further scrutiny.

If only Cherokee County had the ACIM alert system earlier to locate Larry Pugh’s witnesses who were going to testify against him.
Only in Cherokee County, Texas can law enforcement pat themselves on the back when their citizens go missing (when their own is out on federal bond) and then have the nerve publish their negligence.

Larry Pugh has pled to 12 federal years for his sexual assaults he committed while patrolling the streets of Jacksonville, Texas; he gets to serve his state time concurrently for only raping “a female inmate.” Easy math.

Not to be outdone by the county that hired and defended ex-officer Larry Pugh, the US Attorney’s office has decided to add another 5 years to Pugh’s 12 year sentence for his perjury. On top of Pugh’s 3 federal charges of sexually assault and retailation, Officer/Defendant Pugh lied during the civil rights trial brought on by one of his surviving victims. The lawsuit was brought on by nine (9) women Larry Pugh raped “at their homes, abandoned apartments and a cemetery.”
According to Cherokee County newspaper outlets, such as The Jacksonville Daily Progress, Pugh’s victims were all “homeless” and drug addicts—-yet 9 of his victims lived in actual homes in the area. Again, the most recent of Larry Pugh’s assault victims was actually awarded $300,000 (they’ll never see) in a civil suit filed after his incarceration, AGAIN NOT ACCURATELY REPORTED BY CHEROKEE COUNTY NEWSPAPERS.

These ‘news outlets’ did report the unfortunate decision by a federal judge not to hold the city of Jacksonville, TX monetarily responsible for hiring the convicted rapist cop. Despite the documented record of excessive force and sexual crimes. Many, many more civil suits are in the works against the now Federal felon Larry Pugh and his entire Cherokee County law enforcement support group. Certainly none will be published, unless favorable to the city and county.

This typical lying and propaganda either deliberately or ignorantly reported will be dissected at the end of this blog. Dont confuse us with the facts.

If only the Jacksonville, Texas Rape Crisis Center wasn’t running a funding deficit of over $150,000 because the state cut them off. Maybe then a local officer’s victims could have DNA rape kits ran as unimpeachable State’s evidence against the rapist cop.

Henderson County, TX:

In other news, Larry Pugh may have cellmate in federal prison with the indictment of Malakoff, TX police officer Horace Poullard, in neighboring Henderson County. Poullard is also accused of raping a female traffic stop while she was in custody.

      Poullard

Another example of arrested for ‘Driving While Female’ in the backwoods of East Texas.
That won’t stop the East Texas girls from attending the Texas Redneck Games  as reported by Cherokee County media outlets.

 And there we can find the tiny little story about Jacksonville, TX police officer Larry Pugh getting tossed overboard by his buddies at the Cherokee County district court.
The East Texas Redneck games recently held in Henderson County is being investigated by local police for permit violations and the raunchy debauchery taking place. Such events like the “Butt Ugly Butt Crack Contest,” “The Spam Eating Contest” and the “Mattress Toss Off” have been spotlighted and advertised. Complete with a Wet T-shirt Contest.
This is not an event for minors or minorities.

For several years the white trash convention and redneck rodeo has been held in neighboring Cherokee County’s Shiloh Ridge outside Alto, TX, amidst complaints. The last rowdy tobacco chewin’ event took place August 4-11, 2006 in Alto, TX and was greeted with open arms by the community. However, the good people of