Episode Transcription: 

roxo media house welcome back to fortitude folks JW
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Wilson with my co-host Brinton Payne lasso youth uh brought to you of course by our friends at cap text Bank our old
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friend Eddie Brown is back here today our investigative journalist buddy from the fourth weekly
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last time he was here he exposed some issues related to the Tarrant County judges presiding over some cases where
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they weren’t appropriately certified ones correct today though Brinton some
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Tarrant County Prosecutors been doing some things maybe they shouldn’t be doing fair to say fair to say welcome to
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the show back to show Eddie Brown we appreciate the time let’s get into it hang on real quick Eddie have you ever I mean what if what if we get in trouble
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and Eddie’s saying this about the prosecutors we’re going to be like looked at In a Different Light I feel
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good I’m unconscious it’s clear don’t get into any legal trouble you don’t get you won’t get caught up in the system they’re easier said than done easier
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said than done um I want to mention all the stories I’m going to talk about today have been
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published at the weekly so uh it’s all stuff that’s already out there and we’ve already vetted it and whatnot but um I
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wanted to start by talking about prosecutors and um amongst all the different levels of the Criminal Justice
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System um they receive routinely the least amount of scrutiny and I was thinking about that um I think
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there’s really two reasons and I say scrutiny from the public and the media right they’re very rarely mentioned if
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they are it’s just you know they’re Prosecuting this in that case um I think right now there’s a lot of public attention on policing and so I
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think there’s a kind of disproportionate uh you know amount of attention being paid to uh policing basically we all see
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that every day um secondly I think uh you know popular culture uh think Law and Order you know
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movies um that portray prosecutors um are almost always uh they do in a way
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that kind of reveres the position and through my work at the weekly and I enjoy looking at the criminal justice
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system I think it’s important for folks to remember that just like police just like you and me uh these are humans and
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they have um emotions and intrinsic biases just like everyone else and while their job
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is to be on a neutral Arbiter of Justice
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um they’re still humans and um according to the Washington Post around 30 percent of wrongful convictions are the results
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of prosecutorial misconduct so that could be uh withholding evidence that would help the defense that could be
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outright lying during the trial um prosecutors are there to win right so they’re there to to win um those figures
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are they know what their winning percentage is and that’s you know one criteria that’s used they would deny it
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but that is one criteria that’s used to promote them and whatnot so I have uh five stories I want to share today about
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uh prosecutors and it’ll kind of shed light on kind of a more realistic
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nuanced look at the role they play in Tarrant County I’m going to start with our top
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prosecutor who’s a top prosecutor in Tarrant County right now Sharon Wilson’s gone Phil Sorrels Phil Sorrels yeah just took
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office and he um was the GM though right like he doesn’t actually prosecute he’s
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considered the the district attorney everyone else uh you won’t see him in court Prosecuting you’re correct that’s a good point but he is a district
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attorney he is the top prosecutor he decides uh has say on which cases are prosecuted and whatnot under him are a
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large number of assistant District Attorneys these are the folks who you will see in the courtroom actually Prosecuting the cases so it’s an
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important distinction he’s a long time uh was a long time County criminal judge and um last year I talked to a general
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named gentleman named Brendan Jones so this story has to deal with Phil Sorrels as time as judged in 2021 right before
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he ran but it’s important because Phil Sorrels is now the top uh district
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attorney over this same case and he arguably created this um this case fabricated this case
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so Brandon Jones um he’s a young man married um has a stepdaughter and um some family
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court issues came up expelled over into the criminal court system this happens fairly often someone makes allegations
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um there were a lot of police you know someone meaning his exes his wife’s ex made some allegations and was sending
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police over constantly uh harassing him and so his his family went into hiding and he refused to tell a family court
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judge where the location was and so that you know that leads to jail time that led to him being uh what he would say
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was you know falsely arrested and they said he was resisting arrest which he denied so that whole family Corridor
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deal landed Brendan in Criminal Courts number 10.
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on October 4th 2021 and when he arrived his his account of the story is that um
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when he was talking to judge sorel’s uh Sorrels took offense with the fact that
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Jones was he said being polite but but also criticizing the fact that he was
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having to be there uh without any without having committed any discernible crime and so Phil according to Brendan and I
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have some documentation here which we’ll go over um said that Phil looked at him and said well I guess you’re not it’s present
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which means he was going to issue a bench warrant for non-appearance um which they do if you don’t show up
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for court those who have bench warrant and Brennan realized what Phil was verbally threatening and he went
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downstairs with several witnesses and signed an affidavit in the county clerk’s office and I have a copy of that
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here that’s that same day and time swearing that he was present in courts and there’s a witness and it is
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certified by the office of the county clerk which is next to which is on the second floor of the Tim Curry building
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and it’s interesting if you look at the um the bench warrants said they called roll at 9 49 A.M
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which is interesting because they would have called roll at 9 00 a.m that’s when that’s when you have to be seated you
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have to be presents and they call a roll one time you’re either there or you aren’t right either on time and you’re
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present or you’re not for them to call roll again almost an hour later is very
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suspect and it it is um it appears that it was done as soon
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as Brennan left to to catch him you know not being in court and so he has this
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outstanding bench warrants that has not allowed him to he’s in hiding um he hasn’t been he has not been able
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to see his wife and daughter because of this and um like I said he can’t get his life
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back together and he hopes that because um this order was this whole uh bench
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warrant was ordered by Phil Sorrels who is now the top prosecutor he argues that the D.A cannot ethically prosecute this
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case so we have an example I think a lot of people think whenever a prosecutor is Prosecuting something it’s
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a an actual crime and you know B uh ethically a crime right we’ll talk about some things that were technically crimes
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that prosecutors have gone after that arguably should never have been prosecuted um so that’s the first example do you guys have any questions
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on that yeah so why why is he fighting this I mean it’s clear he has evidence that he was there
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during the time he was really not there why didn’t does he have an attorney I’m guessing can his attorney just prove
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this really quickly to be a falsehood yeah I don’t know if he has an attorney he probably will seek that he is going
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to have people speak at the Commissioner’s Court coming up in the near future to make this very public we of course we published a story on this
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Phil did not respond to our question our request for comments um but it seems if if what Brennan is
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saying is is true and it’s backed up by what I’ve read and witnessed statements
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um it seems absurd that the D.A would still be prosecuting this case it’s very you know it’s very clear just based on
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the government’s own documents there’s some really weird things going going on here so sure so yes it would be it would be the role of a of a defense attorney
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to talk to the DA’s office um but this is a very high profile case that’s probably
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um embarrassing for the DA’s office so in these situations what I found and I’ll share some stories are very similar
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they’ll kind of double down on being wrong about something out of Pride and
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spite sure because it’s embarrassing so unfortunately in these cases you’ll kind
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of see the District Attorney’s Office kind of dig their heels in they maybe wait a couple years before they drop the charges finally which is horrible yeah
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I’ll put bench warrant like that like what is uh what’s the what time that
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this other guy would have to like is that pretty significant that bench warrant like that if he were to be
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arrested if he showed up to uh it was arrested he would he would serve
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um I’m sure not not like a year in jail but he would be in jail for for a while so it’s a serious thing I’m not sure
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exactly what it is um month or a week or something in jail it’s enough that he doesn’t want to show about the Tarrant County Fair uh and and
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the DA’s office could drop this um instantly where do you get access to these stories you go and comb through
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like how did you like this one would tip you got a dip or something he must have reached out to me I think I think
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someone reads A lot of these cases are people reaching out to me then I’ll I’ll meet them and um you know can you meet
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him yeah I did meet him this guy you can’t tell us where because no he’s not
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in Tarrant County right now either way so but at that time do you know where he is now Eddie I do but I guess that’s all
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right yeah yeah but you’re you’re in contact with them I’m in contact with him yes and I met him and even when I met him of course anytime he shows up in
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public it’s you know it’s it puts his safety his Liberty I should say uh and possibly his safety in in Jeopardy uh
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but yeah he reached out to me and what I do with these Pro with these stories is I talk to them and one of the first
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things I ask is for them to back up everything they say with with documents and he was one that was very good he
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literally had a pile of he’d been collecting you know just like I do he knows how to ask for stuff and that’s
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where I’m like okay this guy’s he’s backing up what he’s saying and then you continue talking talk to other Witnesses okay it’s very consistent and then you
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reach the point like okay it’s I would I’ll put my name I’ll put my name behind it it’s very credible at that point it’s like fair so the one thing though you
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said is that the it appear it seemed to me maybe I made this assumption that the
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wife and the wife was making the accusations I’m sorry I started it to begin with but the wife’s ex-husband
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okay yes because then you were saying that he couldn’t see his wife and family or whatever right and then you were like
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wait why would he want to see them if they’re the ones who kind of no no they didn’t I mean his wife and stepdaughter
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didn’t do anything wrong they were terrified by all the uh police uh resulting police raids and Brendan’s
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arrest and all this kind of stuff and so they’ve just kind of from what I understand they’ve gone into hiding for their own safety okay it’s a real tragic
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story yeah next story so um this one I’m gonna be kind of brief on this next one
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because the the last three I think are really really important but the idea
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that people who are you know in jail or being prosecuted they must be bad guys there’s a gentleman named Manuel Mata
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who’s a local citizen journalist so he’s a cop Watcher uh it’s a very popular thing on YouTube now to see people going
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out and videotaping police and government buildings so he does this and so uh his job
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um invariably offends you know local police and
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um and so he’s made he’s made enemies with um with law enforcement and I’ll give you two examples of two times he was
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arrested while doing his uh his cop watching one he was uh this is all live streams you can literally watch these
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interactions in Fort Worth uh one he’s walking to a gas station and a fourth police officer Bengal approaches him
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Bengal clearly recognizes Manuel Mata um and says that mod is interfering with
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a police investigation well way in the background about a football fields uh length away is uh the police had pulled
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over somebody right mod is trying to get to the gas station he said he said it’s going to get uh some cigarettes and this officer is
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going up and saying no you cannot walk on this sidewalk and then eventually um are you filming it yeah yeah and he
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said he there’s a lot of this sometimes he’s filming just for his own self to uh safety he wasn’t even like you know
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trying to cop watch that more he just if he sees a cop approaching he turns on his camera and a lot of people are learning you have to do this
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um either to protect herself or to later exonerate yourself right and so that video is is very clear but he was
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arrested and he spent a month in jail for that and you can watch the video and see that he didn’t commit any crime whatsoever
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um another incident he was in the turn Appraisal District uh building and was there as a citizen journalist
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filming the events and again you know Tad some of these places
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um they don’t like what he does so they booted him out around June and as
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they’re pushing him out they allege that he assaulted one of the officers um again it’s videotaped both from his
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point of view and another gentleman’s point of view and the security cameras I’ve watched it all and he does he doesn’t hit anyone
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so but he’s again you know rested and he spends another month in jail he’s currently facing several misdemeanor
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charges um all stemming from his work uh as a First Amendment auditor someone who’s
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working in the public interest but he does piss off law enforcement and District Attorneys very often work very
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closely with law enforcement yeah with law enforcements they would say that they don’t uh but that’s not true they
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they’re they’re basic they you know they’re basically friends they know each other and so that’s I wanted to mention his name because you know he’s he’s you
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know these things can last for years before they they resolve these cases but he’s someone who the community looks up
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to and respects and uh the local criminal justice system has targeted him uh purely because he embarrasses
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um local officials public officials so Emmanuel Mata okay um yeah does he have
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a YouTube site at uh manual m-a-n-u-e-l uh matz I believe you can
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find him yeah pretty popular some of this stuff is I’ve seen a couple of these over the over the over time but it’s it’s impressive what he’s doing to
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oh okay I I feel like there’s a there’s a place for this in the world it makes me nervous yeah obviously for that
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reason but yeah yes people do this now that are trying to catch keep the cops honest and obviously we know cops are
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relatively good in that regard but there are some out there that maybe do some things that this guy’s looking for so
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what you know what’s your take on that I can venture to guess where you’re gonna go on this but it you know but are we
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getting to a point where you know people change when they’re on camera we got a camera here I’m asking you things maybe
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a little bit differently than I would if we were just sitting around having a cup of coffee or something like that but
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um are we are we policing ourselves too much because you know that most likely
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the officers are like I’m getting filmed I don’t want to be film you know that kind of thing and so playing the other
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side of it is it is it necessary to just be filming all the time you know everywhere and
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everything and some people that’s their lives right that’s their livelihood and things like that and going and finding
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um exciting and Sensational thing you being from the media are we getting too Sensational you know about all of this
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stuff are we selling our souls for a little bit of excitement you know uh what do you think yeah the uh the
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citizen auditor the citizen journalists movements um it’s hard to categorize them as as uh
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they’re not unified you have some people who do it very carefully you have some people who are very outlandish and so
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it’s it’s it’s hard to um talk about it without admitting that um there are
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people that do a better job than others right a more responsible job at it but at its core it’s it’s the idea that if
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if we do not assert certain rights we will lose them and I think that’s a fair
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um assertion and I think when you watch these videos and you see government officials totally unaware that we yes we
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have every right to be inside public buildings filming we do that’s a that is a constitutional right to see how many
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elected officials government staff cops do not understand that I think they need
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to learn that and I think if if we allow that to be eroded we’re going to find
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ourselves in a position where government thinks that we work for them and I think that’s that’s that’s the the battle that
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that they’re involved in does all that recording though push things to a darker place in your opinion I’m sure it upsets
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um and you can tell you’re right you know to your point it does um when you put a camera in front of the cop’s face it you can tell it makes them agitated
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right they don’t like it um but I think you know people citizen Auditors would argue that it’s
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their job to be the adult in the room and I think it’s the same way actually with Phil Sorrels because you know when
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we published a story I saw a comments someone said how dare they talk back you know this person talk back to a judge or
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you know they they invited this you know retaliation and I don’t mind you know saying that uh it’s not it’s not the
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judge’s job to um do anything but be an adult and I don’t care what that
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person says unless they’re threatening you which Brandon Jones wasn’t um if they’re upsetting you as a
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government official you need to put those emotions behind you because your job is you’re a public servant and your
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job is to either Minister the law or enforce the law or you know as processors prosecutors do
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um enforce a law in a courtroom so I mean yes it gets people upset but I think we
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need to understand that the burden is on the people that we’re paying as taxpayers to be the responsible adult at
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all times it’s hard though because we’re at a place sorry just something yeah yeah yeah yeah uh we’re we’re doing all
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kinds of things I recently saw the mayor of our you know our great mayor in this great City talk about
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um some of the things she had to go through and making the decision to run again and things like that and it’s just
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one of those deals where we’re just getting more and more primitive in our ways and it’s harder and harder I think
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for people no matter who they are where they are to keep that emotional restraint especially if they’ve got a
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cell phone camera in their Facebook keep going on the street fair point so I want to say most of the time for uh did you
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like my opinion there no no it’s it’s a it’s an important perspective
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um to bring that you know sometimes I mean I’m not going to be an apologist for every citizen journalist if they’re
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going out there being Reckless and it’s exciting things I’m not I am not advocating for that but a lot of them do
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with the right intentions I would say most and do with the right intentions um I want to spend the last part of our
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conversation talking about a prosecutor in Tarrant County he’s one of the top prosecutors there of the white collar
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crimes division um his name is Lloyd witchell and his job is to investigate corrupt public
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officials and these three stories I have would say that arguably Lloyd witchell
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is one of the if not the most corrupt public official uh in Tarrant County so
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it’s not without irony that his job is to investigate um why call our crimes I’ll just say so
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I’m gonna give you three stories um what an introduction yeah what an introduction so I’ve got now that well
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we’ll just start the show at this point um I’m gonna go chronologically because there are three stories he uh cases he
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prosecuted um that are very interesting um the oldest one it wasn’t that long
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ago um were these two South Lake school board members in early 2021 I don’t know
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if you remember these two school board members were indicted for violating the openings meetings act open meetings acts
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and I’ve spent a lot of time investigating this story and I was nominated for a journalism award
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um Tarrant County has never prosecuted an opens meetings act violations in the history I requested copies from the
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county of any example than prosecuting um it’s very rarely prosecuted in the
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state of Texas because it’s a hard case to prosecute it’s it’s um you know it’s it’s it’s a bureaucratic it’s an important law but
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it’s kind of bureaucratic and it elected officials understandably might make mistakes or not you know comply with
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levels it’s not a very it’s not as clear-cut as other crimes or it’s not like theft uh so anyway
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um the DA’s office had never prosecuted this case this type of crime I should say uh in its history
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um the timing of it happening rights as the elections were occurring for the school board was interesting and then I
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realized that it was never investigated by the police so typically what happens
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with um charges usually at local law enforce enforcement will do the initial investigation and they’ll ask the
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District Attorney’s office to accept the case so unprecedented prosecutions have always kind of caught my attention so
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um if if a DA’s office is Prosecuting something a type of crime for the first
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time in its history that’s that’s always of Interest right because there’s usually a reason that they do not
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there’s a reason that the this attorney’s office did not prosecute the opening meeting act for the past I don’t
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know whatever 80 90 years the office has been in existence maybe longer um and there’s usually a reason for that
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a lot of large organizations that very Brazen brazenly
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um keep the public out of important meetings and this was an
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example where two board members were texting each other trying to resolve a very painful moment in that City’s
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history as it came to terms with um just rampant racism within that City so
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these are two board members who um were trying to heal the community but they
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became used as political political Pawns in an election that ultimately got our County Judge elected
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um Lord witchell was also involved in a case of a former Justice of the piece
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named Jackie Wright and this was another unprecedented uh prosecution this time
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uh Lloyd whitchell prosecuted someone for not updating their homestead
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exemption so uh Jackie is an elderly lady she
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did not she found out I should say because I don’t know what she did or didn’t know but she found out that her
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home did not have the proper homestead exemption because she rents she has a couple homes that she’s renting um so in 2019
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um she contacted Tad noted the error brought it to their attention and then paid the
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money that she owed but what she didn’t know is at that same time as she’s doing that the District Attorney’s Office uh
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is investigating her um and then after she pays the arrears
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um she is indicted on these felony charges for uh what was vaguely called public corruption at the time and so um
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what in talking to Jack and her family um she had made enemies with some
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powerful folks um JD Wells um uh JD Johnson apologized and uh who’s
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the commissioner at the time and Jody Johnson who is the Constable at the time and some other Republican operatives and
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so she maintains that uh they want her out of office and so it’s important to understand
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um not updating your homestead exemption is not a criminal act there’s no penal
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code violation in Texas for um you know forgetting to update your your um your homes exemption it’s a
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civil matter I wouldn’t think so yeah it’s a civil matter they don’t come arrest you they don’t throw you in jail it’s not a felony it’s a civil matter so
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if they find out if tear the president finds out you haven’t paid your uh money they contact you and you pay your money
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you have to pay it but it’s it’s not it’s never given to the fourth PD or something and
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so the District Attorney’s office they were in an interesting situation because they had caught her doing something that
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literally was not a crime but they had already indicted her so they needed to
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come up with something to charge her with and what they did was they came up with this idea of government tampering
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of a document um so that’s that’s the charge she eventually went to trial for
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um early last year and I want to emphasize we think of tampering with the government document and we’ve actually
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found public officials who’ve done this uh Jeff law you know with Tad
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but I imagine someone you know breaking into a building pulling out a file uh getting a Sharpie you know altering
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something um and to be clear Jackie never tampered with any document this was a document
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that existed in Tad’s office right and whenever she notified them about it they
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updated the document so it’s it was really it was a real stretch to say that this old lady forgetting to update her
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exemption uh was tampering with the documents I also found out from uh tads
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on records turn Appraisal District that’s at any given time in Tarrant County there are thousands of people who
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have not updated their homestead exemption uh maybe their parent died and they moved into the house and they’re still enjoying that tax break it happens
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they’re not supposed to do that but it happens or someone you know uses it um misuses it to save money you know or
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it’s just an accident I don’t think the District Attorney’s Office District Attorney’s office is
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going to indict all those people with felonies so anyway um they didn’t die Jackie and I went to
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the trial because I was I was blown away by the um the basics of the case you know this
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lady had forgotten to update her humps exemption and she was arrested and charged with a felony and I knew the
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background I knew a lot about the Johnson family I knew the kind of the political Intrigue you know Precinct four
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um it all was very consistent uh with what we found and ironically JD’s office was is or was incredibly corrupt I mean
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he would use government materials and and resources and employees for his personal campaign and it’s all
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documented um but he was never charged with anything right so if you’re part of the old boy club you can pretty much do
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anything get away with it but if you if you become enemies with the old boy club you get thrown in jail
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um unfortunately Jackie um was found guilty you have this I was
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found guilty of the the charges and she’s currently appealing her case and the judge in front of that sorry the
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judge presiding over that case uh Was Daryl Coffey so that’s what got me following uh the retired judges and
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looking into uh false uh assignments as a senior judge all the stuff that has happened
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um in in the intervening uh almost a year was because of Jackie’s case and I also want to mention the number two
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prosecutor at the DA’s office is Rob Catalano and he recused himself from
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Jackie’s case but was still present there during the trial and I’ve asked
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him he’s never answered the question why did he recuse himself from the case and bring in and bringing in this bogus
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retired judge who had no oath of office on file and he was never a senior judge and so anyways now we’ve talked about
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Phil we’ve talked about Rob Catalano one more story about Lloyd whitchell um
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last September um I was found not guilty of harassment and by a jury and so um I was this is a
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personal story Lloyd witchell was the prosecutor in my case and you know long story short
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I’m finally out of this family court reunification process
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um these false charges were used to try to keep me from seeing my daughter a lot of times people will make up stuff to to
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skew the the family court process and so that’s what happened with me
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um 12 13 phone calls unanswered phone calls I had made to um a man who was hiding my child in his
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house was used as an alleged criminal offense um and that was also partly contrived by
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the District Attorney’s Office whose good friends who maintains close connections with my daughter’s maternal
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family right so I’m fully exonerated from that but um in the three years that I was facing
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these bogus charges uh Lloyd witchell was Sharon Wilson I should say placed Lloyd witchell on my case so
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the white-collar crimes top prosecutor was placed on my Class B misdemeanor
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charge as a sign of we have power over you now
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all right so I’ve by that point I’ve written a lot of scathing things about Sharon Wilson and Lloyd witchell and so
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the whole idea that that he would be the one over my case and he tried his darndest in court
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um to get me found guilty because it would have been a blemish on my career and it would have been payback
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um and he and he honestly lost his temp he was very clear he lost his temper during the trial and made up a lot of
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things fabricated a lot of things to do anything he could to find me guilty and he ultimately lost
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um but I want to read a letter and maybe this will be the last thing we do because I know we’re running close on time this kind of summarizes the
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situation that I was in and I sent this letter to the the District Attorney’s
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Office a few weeks before my trial just to put them on notice about how absurd
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that what they were doing was so here’s the letter that they have on record
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I am filing this letter so the District Attorney’s Office cannot feign ignorance about the actions of D.A Sharon Wilson
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and assistant district attorney Lloyd witchell in the coming weeks the intentional placement of which will over
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my harassment trial is an overt Act of aggression and intimidation on the part
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of Wilson and Mitchell and a possible violation of section 3902 abuse of
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official office which explicitly Outlaws the use of office to harm or defraud
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another or Texas Penal Code 3903 which prohibits an official from using their
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office to mistreat an individual at ish you are more than a dozen articles published by the fourth weekly
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that have undoubtedly maligned whistle’s reputation many of those articles were written by myself and I am the co-author of many of
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the editorials that have similarly reported on malfeasance on the part of the D.A of D.A Wilson for three years my
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case which involves unanswered phone calls to a middle-aged man who is hiding my daughter in his home
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has been subject to last minute court cancellations and an absolute lack of effort to resolve this matter so I can
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finally resolve my child custody case the message was clear stop investigating
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tips related to the DA’s office and I want to say be clear they never offered any form of plea bargaining for three
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years this was done to force me to go to trial so which one could have his revenge on me all right back to the
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letter it defies belief that out of all of the assistant district attorneys who can be tasked with disposing of a Class
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B misdemeanor from someone with no criminal record that the head of white-collar crimes happens to be
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assigned to my trial witchell has placed himself in a position where he can finally seek retribution for my
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reporting on the two Carroll School Board indictments that singularly served the interests of himself the recipient
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of district attorney Wilson’s endorsement for County Judge our magazines reporting on the trial of
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Jackie Wright has similarly maligned the reputation of Wilson whitchell and the public Integrity unit both bodies of
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reporting made me a finalist for a First Amendment award and Diamond award attached you will see links to my
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articles on witchell our newspapers reporting on D.A Wilson are well known so I’m not including those links in June
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2019 I’ve documented obstruction of justice on the part of assistant district attorney Alfredo Valverde and
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Bots attempts to cover up those actions basically the da went out of the way to fabricate these criminal charges in the
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first place and that could be its own story um I should not be the subject to retribution or intimidation for
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exercising my rights as a U.S citizen to file sworn complaints tied to those Acts or as a journalist following news tips
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wherever they lead so anyway that’s uh that’s Lloyd witchell and that’s at this
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attorney’s office way of trying to seek revenge on a news reporter so
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yeah what do you hope comes from this I mean I I appreciate you telling your story what are you wanting this to
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become you’ve worded on it you’ve published it you’ve talked about it here with us what is your what is your
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desired outcome if there is one again I I um you know my trial was was closely
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followed by a lot of people and a lot of attorneys were very interested in it and when when Lloyd lost it was considered a
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big victory for um you know for justice and integrity in Tarrant County my
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one one of the reasons I’m I’m focused on prosecutors and I’m talking to you on your show today is that again I I think
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prosecutors are not scrutinized um to the levels that they should be
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they have incredible leeway on uh whether they fabricate uh criminal
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charges knowingly uh withhold evidence uh willfully keep people facing charges
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who they know are innocent for purely political and Petty reasons and and so we have an honest understanding of the
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role that they can play um the in creating injustices in our system we’ll never have a system that
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works for the people is the journalism that you’re speaking of is that the way that to keep these folks honest
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is that how this how these guys get kept in check that’s one way to do it um they
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have incredible levels of immunity so they can commit things that would be considered criminal acts in the line of
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their their work and uh they’re immune from it just like judges are so until there are reforms that allow uh
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prosecutors to be uh prosecuted um or disbarred more easily
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um they’re never it’s very unlikely that of their own volition they will do the right thing simply because
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um I’m exposing them I wish that that were enough um that public sentiment were enough but
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there needs to be there needs to be meaningful reforms um that allows that causes prosecutors
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to understand that they can get in trouble they can not only lose their job they can go to jail um for this the types of misconduct that
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we’ve discussed today do prosecutors get prosecuted ever I can’t think of you
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know if they if they go if they pull out a gun and shoot someone to court I guess they would get prosecuted but if they do
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anything in their capacity as uh prosecutors um even to the extent that they
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um you know withhold evidence at least to someone being executed or you know and stuff like that has happened
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um they’re never as so much as sued you know they’re they’re completely immune from anything and in what career in what
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other job can you name if someone screws up rurally that they have absolutely no
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there’s absolutely no accountability so that’s that’s something that’s very unique to prosecutors judges and
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district attorneys in this show Eddie sometimes yeah yeah sometimes I think
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it’s reflective actually of like our whole system right now not just in the
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public sector but the private sector as well I mean I just think that we’re at a place in time where
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um there’s maybe not a lot of accountability and I’m not saying that because I agree with some of the kind of
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accusations you made here today I just um I do think you know
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um uh it’s difficult uh to get good people
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in good jobs to to continue to do things when there’s this much speculation you
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know over so many things uh and their actions and things like that and in the government side of things it’s a very
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open book or it should be on you know what they are I I think you know quite
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honestly these things happen all throughout Society it’s just that there’s not the Freedom of Information
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Act that a corporation you can’t go and say Hey I want a foia you at McDonald’s
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for spitting in my burger I mean it’s just you know and and I think that that is where a lot of the degradation of uh
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American government has gone is because of um the ability of going and just
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fine-tooth combing everything I mean it it makes it real difficult you know and I’m and I’m not I hope you take that as
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just oh yeah yeah sure you’re absolutely right there there’s an open records act for you know what happens at McDonald’s
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but there’s a fundamental difference but between government and private business and there’s there’s regulations for
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private business you know the SEC there’s ways to do that but we all have a vested interest in government because
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that is um that’s that’s the ideal that that will either allow us to have our civil
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rights or not McDonald’s is not going to meaningfully infringe on our civil rights McDonald is not going to falsely
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jail us or uh shoot us you know during during a a traffic stop so you know I do
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I do draw uh respectfully draw the distinction between the two and I think any government scrutiny is good and
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welcome clearly you do my friend well Eddie thank you for sharing your thoughts here and and excellent work I
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know you’re always looking for to do to do right with your with your investigative journalism so thank you for sharing it the best way we
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appreciate you very much thanks for having me on we look forward to next time thank you for watching 42 thank you Captain thank you next time
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foreign