|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Whether politics played a role in the criminal indictment of three of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s former aides was hotly debated during the Democratic primary race between District Attorney Kim Ogg and challenger Sean Teare.
The race is over, but politics almost certainly will arise in the eventual prosecution of the case. Or whether it even goes to trial.
The accused — former Hidalgo Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis, former policy aide Aaron Dunn and former policy director Wallis Nader — have not appeared in court since December and multiple hurdles remain before the case can proceed to trial.
Any trial would need to begin quickly if they are to be prosecuted by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. That is because Sean Teare, the former county prosecutor who ousted Ogg in the Democratic primary earlier this month, said he plans to take the district attorney’s office off the case.
Teare easily defeated Ogg in the primary following a campaign largely focused on the case against the former Hidalgo staffers. Teare accused Ogg of weaponizing her office against Hidalgo, who she previously had clashed with over policy differences and budgetary disputes.
Ogg denied the claims, but voters preferred Teare by more than 55 percentage points.
Teare said he will request on his first day in office that state District Judge Hazel Jones remove the Harris County District Attorney’s office from the Hidalgo staffers’ case and hand it off to a nearby county’s district attorney.
“I want to remove politics from it by getting a completely independent DA’s office that has no relationship with anyone involved to look at it and just make a determination,” Teare said. “I think that is the way you can ensure we are not dealing with any type of political malfeasance.”
Teare first must defeat another former prosecutor, Republican Dan Simons, in the November general election.
Simons called Teare’s decision to comment on the case “highly inappropriate” in a statement Wednesday.
“What I can say is that when I am elected district attorney, I will guarantee that anyone charged with a crime in Harris County will be treated equally and fairly, regardless of who they are,” Simmons wrote.
Harris County District Clerk records show the parties are next due in court May 13 for a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence. Jones also still needs to hold a hearing and rule on a defense motion to disqualify Ogg’s office from the prosecution that was filed in June 2022.
Ogg’s office said Tuesday the case is proceeding, but was unable to estimate when it would reach trial, blaming the delay on the defense’s need to review evidence.
Derek Hollingsworth, an attorney representing Dunn, still is reviewing evidence, but said that is because the district attorney’s office provided more than three terabytes worth of data, all of which must be reviewed. A series of “case reset” requests have been filed by defense attorneys and granted by the judge over the past year to allow more time for that review.
Because of Teare’s comments and his belief that the prosecution against his client is baseless, Hollingsworth said he believes the case should be suspended until a new district attorney takes office.
“If Sean Teare is going to get a new one in on it, I'm sure that a rational human being with no ties and vendettas will dismiss the case,” Hollingsworth said.
An attorney for Triantaphyllis declined comment. Attorneys for Nader did not respond to a request for comment.
Judges set their own dockets for hearings and trials, but neither the prosecution nor the defense appear to be rushing Jones.
The saga began in June 2021, when Harris County Commissioners Court approved an $11 million contract for Houston-based Elevate Strategies to conduct COVID-19 vaccine outreach efforts. The court’s two Republican commissioners at the time alleged the company was awarded the bid because its leader and sole employee, Felicity Pereyra, previously had worked for Democratic campaigns.
Hidalgo canceled the contract a short time later, arguing increasing politicization of the contract had distracted from the county’s goals to combat COVID-19.
Behind the scenes, a state Republican Party leader began working to assist Ogg’s investigation of the contract, an inquiry that led to the felony indictments of Triantaphyllis, Dunn and Nader on charges of misusing official information and tampering with a government document in April 2022.
Hidalgo blamed the charges on a political vendetta against her by Ogg.
Ogg maintains she simply is following the evidence where it leads and has no vendetta against Hidalgo, noting the indictments were unsealed months before Hidalgo faced a competitive 2022 election against Republican Alexandra del Moral Mealer.
As the case proceeded, Hidalgo and several other prominent Houston Democrats lined up to back Teare’s candidacy. Teare resigned from Ogg’s office in February 2023, to run for the seat. He also criticized Ogg for high turnover in the district attorney’s office, failing to implement some criminal justice reforms, and for losing too many high-profile cases.
Teare said he has no idea what evidence Ogg’s office has gathered, and that the office may have a solid case against Hidalgo’s staffers. Regardless, he said the case is tainted because of how the evidence was gathered and the political questions swirling around the case.
“I want the right thing to happen, whatever that is,” Teare said.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
