ICYMI| Two Houston Democrats are facing prison for public corruption. You know, the kind that Democrats say never happens. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo are facing similar charges, although the voter fraud comes from two separate cases.
In both cases, the charges involve the awarding of multi-million dollar contracts. These cases have not gotten national exposure due to the political party of the offenders.
Hidalgo has faced intense scrutiny over a contract awarded to Elevate Strategies, which is run by Felicity Pereyra, a powerful Democratic insider for $11 million dollars. Pereyra also worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Elevate Strategies was a one-woman show before they were awarded the large government contract. Elevate Strategies was awarded the contract over UT Health, one of the city’s major hospitals. The ones who voted to give them the contract all answer to Hildago.
The contract involved giving COVID-19 shots. So why wouldn’t a one-woman show be better than a hospital system? Hildago’s lawyer claims the contract was on the up and up. I intend to investigate this the moment I finish helping OJ catch the real killers of his wife and her friend.
Turner made local headlines when he was accused of corruption by former Houston Housing and Community Development Director Tom McCasland. The dispute is over a $15 million dollar housing contract, Turner has moved to award to the Harbor Venture Group – where his former law partner, Barry Barnes, is in charge. In Houston, the mayor has the power to award contracts without the input or approval of others. Turner claims he had no idea Barnes was connected to the company.
The Houston mayor allegedly went against staff recommendations for the contract to build senior housing in the city. The recommendations of his staff were to award four contracts totaling $16.2 million for 350 housing units.
Three weeks after McCasland’s allegations against Turner, the mayor canceled the project while claiming the deal had become “too much of a distraction.”
Carmen Roe, a defense lawyer and adjunct professor at the University of Houston School of Law, told Fox News in a phone interview that subpoenas for Turner “are likely to be forthcoming,” although none are currently in play.
Roe also said that “no one can possibly guess as to what a grand jury is going to do” when it came to charges against Hidalgo and that “there’s a lot of information that we don’t know.”
“What we do know is: very suspicious, highly irregular and could lead to criminal charges,” Roe said.
“Both cases, at a value of greater than $300,000, are first-degree felonies,” she added, referring to Hidalgo and Turner. “Which means they carry a possible punishment range of a minimum of five years in prison up to life in prison.”
