Sloppy Autopsies in Texas Re: Paul Shrode, Contin and Corrine Stern

Editor's note: What follows is the second piece in a series of articles that the Fort Worth Star Telegraph is running on the junk science of Autopsies in the State of Texas and how bad medical examiners and wrong autopsies are skewing the legal system. The article is by reporter Yamil Berard. It is excellent.



By YAMIL BERARD

yberard@star-telegram.com

An unlicensed physician determined that toddler Lacey Lynn Nichols died in 2006 from blunt-force injuries to the head and brain. Lesli Tull, a fellow in training at the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office, said the child’s death was a homicide, and a foster parent was charged with capital murder.

Tull also gave cause-of-death opinions in dozens of other cases, including accidental deaths and suicides, without a Texas medical license or a training permit from the Texas Medical Board.

Around the state, some medical examiner offices have relied on the work of medical school interns and unlicensed doctors, as well as physicians who have repeatedly failed certification exams or been disciplined for poor work — even for complex capital murder cases.

Relaxing qualification requirements is one way the offices have tried to keep up with overwhelming caseloads and a shortage of forensic pathologists.

Some pathologists also operate what critics deride as "path mills." That can lead to significant errors, undermining the criminal justice system, some medical examiners themselves worry.

"Justice becomes secondary when too many bodies come into the morgue every day and when too few people are doing the autopsy," Galveston County Chief Medical Examiner Stephen Pustilnik said.

Professionals say medical examiners should have specific certification in anatomic and forensic pathology, even though the state requires only a doctor’s license. Without the certification, says Bexar County Chief Medical Examiner Randall Frost, "that’s like graduating from medical school and immediately going in and doing a heart transplant."

Dallas County Chief Medical Examiner Jeffrey Barnard agrees, adding, "The fact that someone is not alive doesn’t change the quality of the expectations of the medical practice."

Texas doesn’t keep track of how many certified forensic pathologists work in the dozen county medical examiner offices; some put the number at 50. That’s not enough to serve large counties, let alone the 200-plus smaller ones that turn to them for autopsies.

Dallas County Chief Medical Examiner Jeffrey Barnard agrees, adding, "The fact that someone is not alive doesn’t change the quality of the expectations of the medical practice."

"There’s only a certain number of doctors out there," Lubbock County Medical Examiner Sridhar Natarajan said.

Because of the shortage, even some larger medical examiner offices use noncertified pathologists. Records that the Star-Telegram obtained from the American Board of Pathology show that the head medical examiner in Laredo for Webb County is not board-certified. Neither is the one in El Paso.

Webb County Chief Medical Examiner Corinne Stern did not respond to requests for comment. In El Paso, Dr. Paul Shrode has told county officials that he plans to gain certification. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A forensic pathologist employed by Harris County also lacks board certification, even though the medical examiner’s office says it requires such credentials. The physician "has amply demonstrated his expertise during his tenure, and the requirement for certification has been waived for him," a county official said.

Next page This month, the Harris County office reassigned its assistant deputy chief medical examiner to administrative duties after the Star-Telegram pointed out that his medical license had lapsed last year and had not been renewed. An official said Dr. Roger A. Mitchell was expected to return to regular duties, including autopsies, within about a week once he had renewed his license.

For years, Lubbock County relied on forensic pathology professors at Texas Tech’s School of Medicine to perform autopsies, even though the Texas Medical Board said they lacked proper state medical licenses. The professors had temporary permits that were automatically renewed by the university each year, a board spokeswoman said.

After questions about their licenses were raised last year, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court appointed Natarajan. Texas Tech medical school officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The El Paso County medical examiner’s office uses a pathologist with a troubled history. Dr. Juan U. Contin, who is under contract with the office, had been fired as the county’s chief medical examiner in 2000 for unsatisfactory performance. He was also disciplined by the state medical board in 1991 in connection with his work for a private pain management clinic after the board found that he engaged in "unprofessional conduct that is likely to deceive or defraud the public or injure the public."

Contin did not return repeated messages.

Lacking permits

In other stopgap measures, some medical examiner offices use interns to do autopsies. Those new physicians are sometimes brought on as fellows with the understanding that they will later take exams to become certified. Meanwhile, they are required to have special permits and be supervised when conducting autopsies.

In some cases, though, medical examiners have hired them without the required permits.

Tull wasn’t the only unlicensed fellow in Tarrant. Dr. Carl Wigren did dozens of autopsies until his lack of a license and training permit was questioned in 2007.

Chief Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani said the county now requires the permits. "We now reinforce that," he said.

Some peers say Tarrant’s failure to ensure that interns have proper credentials is a blemish on the integrity of death investigations.

"It is a way for our own practitioners to denigrate the importance as well as the value of our profession; that’s as if to say it’s OK if she doesn’t have to fill out and have the necessary paperwork that clinical doctors have," Pustilnik said.

In Dallas County, a fellow’s autopsy on a woman helped convict the woman’s boyfriend of capital murder, according to court records. The case is being reopened in federal court after another pathologist who reviewed the case for the defense found what he said were "15 points of error" in the autopsy.

The medical examiner’s office concluded that Daniel Clate Acker strangled Marquette George while he was driving his manual-shift truck and that she was probably dead or near death when she was dumped from the vehicle.

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Acker’s appeals attorney contends that George jumped from the truck, and Dr. Glenn Larkin, a former medical examiner in Pennsylvania who reviewed the case for the defense, said all her injuries resulted from hitting the truck and the ground. He also said there was no indication that the victim’s clothes were examined. That’s important, he said, because there would likely have been tire impressions if the victim had been run over after being strangled, as prosecutors contended.

Barnard said he could not comment on the case.

Tull’s qualifications may become part of an appeal for Charles Yarbrough, a Coleman County foster parent charged with capital murder last year, his attorney said.

Tull didn’t testify at the trial, although she performed the autopsy. Instead, another Tarrant County medical examiner who witnessed the autopsy testified that the toddler died of blunt-force injuries to the head and brain. Yarbrough was eventually found guilty of reckless injury to a child.

If the state did not disclose information about Tull’s lack of qualifications to the court, it’s an issue, said Yarbrough’s attorney, Robert McCool. "If the state is aware of evidence that helps the defendant and they don’t tell you, they’ve got a problem."

Prosecutor Heath Hemphill said the use of fellows to conduct autopsies is not an issue because autopsy reports don’t rely on just one individual. "Every autopsy has to be agreed to and signed off by every medical examiner in that office," he said.

Large caseloads

As staffs are stretched thin, medical examiners often just pick up the pace.

There’s a fierce split on how many autopsies a pathologist can do before quality plummets.

The National Association of Medical Examiners says the quality of work is intrinsically tied to the number performed. A forensic pathologist with no administrative duties should perform no more than 250 autopsies a year, the organization recommended after studying the workload capabilities of offices nationwide. When the workload is greater, no matter how skilled the pathologist, there is a tendency to cut corners or make mistakes, it reported.

When the workload exceeds 350 per pathologist, mistakes are likely to be flagrant and reflect errors in judgment, the association says.

A 2006 survey by the Texas Association of Counties indicated that the number of autopsies was much higher in some counties.

Other records show that the chief medical examiner in Travis County at one point carried the load for deaths in 45 neighboring counties. A 2005 audit indicated that two pathologists each may have handled an average of more than 500 cases, counting both Travis County cases and private autopsies.

Nueces County Chief Medical Examiner Ray Fernandez said that he doesn’t want to do more than 350 a year but that the workload won’t give him a break. He handled 387 autopsies in 2008, even after the county provided a part-time forensic pathologist to help.

"Everybody hears the number 250 and 350, and they magically think it’s one autopsy a day," Fernandez said. "The problem is that you don’t always have one a day. Some days, it may be five, 10. Some days you may have none."

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But Peerwani says caps may dissuade medical examiners from doing complete autopsies. They may stay under the limit, for example, by doing more external examinations. He sees the one-autopsy-a-day guide as akin to requiring a surgeon to perform an appendectomy a day and go home.

"We have eternally questioned the wisdom and philosophy of limiting the number of autopsies," Peerwani said.

It’s reasonable for a pathologist to do about 450 complete autopsies a year, he said, if the office has the staff and resources to support that, as he says Tarrant’s does. In 2008, his office completed 1,029 full autopsies and 305 partial autopsies, as well as 747 inspections/external examinations for the counties in the medical examiner district. In 2008, the office also completed 532 autopsies for nonjurisdictional counties, a medical examiner official said. In 2008, the office had four medical examiners and a fellow.

Donald Lee, executive director of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, said strict limits on autopsies will cause costs to soar. If forensic pathologists are doing up to 500 autopsies a year, he said, that’s fine. That’s two procedures a day.

"Without these strict limits, we can get it done, and we have gotten it done," Lee said.

Not so, other experts say.

"Most medical examiners nationwide are in agreement that there has to be a limit," Frost said. But in Texas, he said, some offices are "doing case after case after case, and doing them very poorly."

The caps are intended to combat the idea of "one guy standing in the morgue all day long taking bodies and running them through the mill as quickly and as cheaply as possible," Pustilnik said. At 450 autopsies a year, "that’s gross malpractice," he said. "The people of the state of Texas are being misserved and malpracticed on."

Dr. William Rohr, chief medical examiner in Collin County, said he was maxed out at 280 autopsies last year. "To do a case right, anywhere from putting on scrubs all the way to getting all of the typos out of the autopsy report, if you want to do it right, it takes a lot of time," Rohr said.

Taking shortcuts

Some medical examiners have come up with shortcuts to keep pace.

Peerwani’s office was criticized for ruling on the causes of some babies’ deaths without inspecting the places where they died. That occurred with cases outside the counties his office services. In such cases, the office often classified deaths as natural, attributed to sudden infant death syndrome.

Information from death scenes can be crucial because it stands the greatest chance of being intact and free from manipulation or contamination, said Larkin, the former Pittsburgh medical examiner.

"The death scene and the body is one continuum," he said. "It is one piece of evidence."

Another timesaver is doing partial autopsies or external examinations rather than complete autopsies.

Peerwani said his office does full autopsies when homicide is suspected. Otherwise, it may do external examinations or partial autopsies, such as checking the heart of someone thought to have died of a heart attack. Most cases of natural death can be solved in these ways, he said.

He grants that important information could be overlooked.

"Nobody has a clear idea if we are missing a death, the truth," Peerwani said. "But it is impossible to do a complete autopsy on every case."

Smaller counties that contract with medical examiners also may limit the scope of an autopsy. The justice of the peace has the authority to decide whether a full autopsy is needed — or whether one is needed at all. In some counties, such requests are rare.

Dr. Randy Hanzlick, who inspects medical examiner offices for the National Association of Medical Examiners, said partial autopsies, particularly in cases of trauma, may miss important elements, leading to significant errors. "If you take at face value everything you’re told, you don’t look beyond what you’re told, you’re not going to find the unexpected," Hanzlick said.

One oversight is causing Peerwani’s office to re-examine some procedures.

This spring, the office said it would begin to X-ray victims of unwitnessed car crashes, especially those with massive head trauma, in response to an error in the ruling of a 66-year-old found dead inside his overturned pickup.

Daniel Obrine’s death had been ruled the result of the crash until a Houston funeral home found part of a bullet jacket lodged in his cheek. Obrine had been only externally examined after the April 26 wreck, without X-rays or an autopsy.

The case, which is unsolved, is now classified as a homicide.

Online: The National Academy of Sciences report, tinyurl.com/pathologist-shortage



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Misleading clues
Death scenes can hold important clues. But they can also mislead, Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani said. He recalls a case in which police found a man shot in the head in his home. No gun was found and key valuables had disappeared, leading investigators to believe that the man was murdered. But medical examiners found traces of antidepressants in the man’s blood and learned in discussions with his psychiatrist that he was depressed and had suicidal tendencies. What’s more, blood splatters on his arms indicated that the head wound had been self-inflicted, Peerwani said. Police later apprehended a suspect who confessed to burglarizing the home after the man’s death. The gun was among the items he stole. His death was found to be a suicide.
— Yamil Berard



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Death investigations In 2008, the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office did full or partial autopsies or external examinations of 2,081 deaths in the four counties it serves. Here’s how the deaths were certified:
Homicides: 130 (6%)

Suicides: 258 (12%)

Natural: 998 (48%)

Accidental: 644 (31%)

Undetermined: 51 (3%)

The office also performed 532 autopsies for nonjurisdictional counties.



Hawaii article re: US Rep. Abercrombie and Mr. Woody "Ethics" Hunt?

Editor's Note: Pasted here for your reading is an article that came out in a paper in "Hawaii Free Press" on July 12, 2009 about Congressman Abercrombie who allegedly promoted high dollar construction of a military base that would directly benefit one of his biggest campaign contributors, Woody Hunt. The main point of the article is that the construction proposed by Abercrombie would benefit his largest campaign donor, Hunt corporations run by Woody Hunt, our very own El Paso ethics expert, corruption buster and coincadentally, military base contractor.--Please read on.

Where or where is our local press. Why was this not covered in our press?

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Follow the money: $10B Guam pork project benefits Abercrombie contributor
By Andrew Walden :: 459 Views :: Oahu News, Oahu Politics, Hawaii State News, Hawaii State Politics, National News, National Politics
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." President Dwight D Eisenhower, 1961

by Andrew Walden

As a hippie transplant from Buffalo, Neil Abercrombie was in the late 1960s and early 1970s involved in a scandal over tearing down military facilities--fighting to drive the ROTC out of what 1960s anti-American war activists called “the shacks” on the UH Manoa campus.

Four decades later, as a Congressman, Abercrombie could become embroiled in a scandal over building up military facilities--steering construction contracts of a military base on Guam towards a major campaign contributor.

Abercrombie was sharply criticized in the Washington Post June 30 for inserting a provision in the House version of the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill doubling the cost of relocating US troops from Okinawa to Guam.

What the media has not reported: Abercrombie’s provision could create a $10 billion opportunity for one of his largest campaign contributors, The Hunt Building Co.

Abercrombie’s provision would require that 70% of the construction workers be US citizens. They would have to be paid at the prevailing wages in Hawaii. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this “would increase the need for discretionary appropriations by about $10 billion over the 2010-2014 period.”

Abercrombie claims, "This is a huge opportunity to put Americans to work, in an American territory, building an American military base." He did not mention the "huge opportunity" for his campaign contributor. There is no requirement that the workers come from Hawaii.

Charles Djou, the Republican candidate seeking to replace Abercrombie in Congress, pointed out, “This is a reckless fiscal maneuver that dramatically increases taxpayers' cost and an inappropriate use of the defense budget to spread political pork.”

OpenSecrets.org reports that Hunt was Abercrombie’s fourth largest source of campaign cash in the most recent cycle. People tied to the El Paso, TX company contributed $13,800 to the Honolulu Congressman in 2007-08. Since 2002, Hunt has contributed at least $32,500 to Abercrombie’s campaigns.

Hunt renovated the 1400-home military/civilian Iroquois Point housing development on Ewa Beach, Oahu at the mouth of Pearl Harbor. The company has an entire Hawaii Division – positioning Hunt to contribute “in-state” to Abercrombie’s 2010 campaign for Governor. (Candidates for Hawaii state offices are limited to 30% out-of-state donations.) Hunt is also building “The Waterfront at Pu`uloa” on Oahu and “Palamanui” and “Kakaeloa” on the Big Island.

On its website, Hunt Building describes itself as “one of the nation’s leaders in military housing, specializing in turnkey design-build services through traditional military construction (MILCON) programs, and the military’s private/public ventures (PPV) process.”

The Washington Post reports that the Guam base will include, “family housing construction…financed by third parties, who would then take a fee for managing those properties.”

Hunt is not the only campaign contributor Abercrombie rewarded with taxpayer dollars in the 2010 Defense Authorization Act. Citizens Against Government Waste pointed out a $3.5 million Abercrombie earmark directed to BAE Systems for “Marine Mammal Awareness.”

OpenSecrets.org reports BAE Systems is Abercrombie’s top contributor for 2007-08 and for 2005-06 kicking in a total of $36,690. Since many BAE systems officers are Hawaii residents, they would be able to contribute “in-state” to Abercrombie’s gubernatorial campaign.

OpenSecrets.org July 7 also nails Abercrombie for accepting a $1,500 campaign contribution from indicted defense Contractor Richard Ianieri, a major backer of Rep Jack "Abscam" Murtha (D-PA).

A flattering article in May, 2009 El Paso Magazine paints Hunt Building Company Chairman Woody Hunt as an anti-corruption fighter. With no sense of irony, Hunt is quoted saying, “Once elected, you have to separate yourself from your supporters and govern.” Another article in the series is titled: “Corruption is the reason El Paso stays poor and over taxed.”

A typical comment on the article reads: “I agree. It's about time El Paso graduated from nursery school level corruption. I look toward Woody to show us how the big boys play.”

Are the big boys of "the military industrial complex" still playing with Neil? Abercrombie has held eight gubernatorial campaign fundraisers since April. His first Campaign Spending Commission report will be due July 31, 2009.
















David Crowder reports Sanchez right: Escobar received free legal services

Yesterday El Paso County District Clerk Gilbert Sanchez filed a righteous ethics complaint against El Paso Commissioner Veronica Escobar. Read yesterday's blog which has a pasted copy of the complaint. As yesterday unfolded, a very "NOIVOUS" and dancing Escobar actually ADMITTED on no less than TWO 1150 AM KHRO talk radio shows (the Hector Montes and Paul Strelzin shows) that she INDEED received free legal services from attorney John Wenke as a Commissioner. (John Wenke represented Escobar before the ethics board on the ethics complaint Stuart Leeds and I had filed against her as a commissioner for misusing county resources in an effort to try and have court costs assessed against County Judge Anthony Cobos even after being told by the County Attorney that it legally could not be done.)

The El Paso County ethics code prohibits officials from receiving gifts over a certain amount and not reporting them. John Wenke, who does employment law, has had at least one case come before Commissioner's court while Escobar has been on the Court. According to David Crowder's article on newspapertree.com, Escobar is a long time, very good friend of John Wenke. Escobar says that she and her husband (Michael Pleters) socialize with John Wenke and that their friendship goes back years. However, despite this long standing, close friendship, according to David Crowder, Escobar, was in fact sitting on Commissioner's Court in March 2007 when it approved a settlement on a case involving John Wenke.

Did Escobar disqualify herself from voting to settle Wenke's suit, as ethics 101 would dictate? In plain English, you don't get to vote on your buddies matters. You have to, at the very least, disclose your friendship and then should gracefully/ethically bow out. What would the public think if I were a commissioner and I voted to settle a lawsuit my good friend Stuart Leeds had brought before commissioner's court. I daresay that if I had the temerity to be so blatantly dishonest, I would be indicted by the Feds in a heartbeat and rightfully so.

If Escobar did vote to settle the case with Wenke, how much was the settlement for? Was Wenke given attorney's fees in that settlement? And if so, how much were they? Why didn't David Crowder ask Escobar those questions? How could he not ask those questions?

What we do know about that lawsuit is that it was fully settled and dismissed after it was settled on April 10, 2007. The order for the dismissal was approved by the attorney for the Plaintiff (the person suing), John Wenke. It was also approved by the attorney for the Defendant (the Defendant in this case was El Paso County, Texas.) In an interesting twist, the attorney for the Defendant in that case, El Paso County, Texas, was none other than then assistant County Attorney Annabell Perez, now Commissioner Perez, Escobar's ally on Commissioner's Court. The lawsuit is styled, Gabrelle Navarrete, Plaintiff v. El Paso County, Texas Defendant in the 327th Judicial District Court, Cause No. 2004-085. See attachment-Dismissal Order.

Where is the FBI? Where is the FBI indeed?

Crowder, instead of giving you pertinent information like the above, spent his cyber ink inadvertently screwing Escobar in an attempt to save her. According to Gilbert Sanchez, Crowder, our neutral investigative reporter, was frantic defending Escobar during the telephone interview with him. Crowder was saying things like Wenke's settlement was old, so who cares? More importantly, Crowder, who has as an obsession with me, kept asking Sanchez to admit that I had penned his (Sanchez')complaint. Crowder even went so far as to say that the writing on the complaint was exactly like mine. Sanchez said that he burst out laughing at that one and asked Crowder if that was a compliment or an insult. No matter how many times Sanchez told Crowder I had nothing to do with it, Crowder, who has a very paranoid mind, could not get away from it. What is also salient is that Crowder lost sight of the fact that for the good of the public, it doesn't matter who wrote the complaint. It is the content that matters. Did Commissioner Escobar receive free legal services? Answer: yes. Did the attorney who provided the legal services have business with the Court? Answer: yes. Does the Ethics code prohibit gifts over a certain amount and not reporting them? Answer: yes.

But it is hard for Crowder to have the power of an honest and normal perspective when he has spent so much of his life being an apologist for Escobar and her ilk and living in her anal canal.

Another Crowderism, (A Crowderism is defined as a dishonesty and bias in favor of his landlord and her friends) is when he wrote that "ethics complaints are normally confidential" insinuating that I had done wrong by publishing Sanchez' complaint on my blog yesterday. Government records are not confidential. Ethics complaints filed with the County are government records. Therefore, ethics complaints are not confidential. However, I must thank David Crowder for providing us, albeit unwittingly, with the very important fact that Escobar was sitting on Commissioner's Court in March 2007 when it voted to settle a suit with Wenke. This information makes Sanchez' complaint against Escobar so much more powerful. Based on this great information, I know where to go next.

In the meantime, while Escobar is pondering in the newspapertree.com the question as to whether to ask Wenke to bill her so as to avoid questions (the question was already raised by the complaint and answered by her) there is a new round of questions.

Editor's note: Ramons Bracamontes' article in the El Paso Times weirdly never mentions that Escobar received free legal services from Wenke. Bracamontes in fact erroneously and dishonestly states several times that Escobar "hired" Wenke. Webster's defines "hire" as "to engage the personal services of someone for a fixed sum."





District Clerk Sanchez files Ethics Complaint v. Comm. Veronica Escobar

El Paso, Texas District Clerk Gilbert Sanchez filed an ethics complaint against El Paso County Commissioner Veronica Escobar today, September 1, 2009. Ironically, the new Ethics Code that Commissioner Escobar has been pushing was passed just minutes ago. Clerk Sanchez' complaint is as follows:

EL PASO COUNTY BOARD OF ETHICS
COMPLAINT FORM

Complete the following form and return the original to: Lupe Martinez, El Paso County Board of Ethics
Address: El Paso County Human Resources Department, 800 E. Overland St., Room #223
El Paso, Texas 79901, (915) 546-2218, ext. 3203

PLEASE TYPE OR PRINT

NAME: Gilbert Sanchez, District Clerk_________________________________

ADDRESS: 500 E. San Antonio, Ste. 103 ___________________

PHONE NUMBER: 546-2030 ________________________________

DEPARTMENT: (County employees only) District Clerk Office______________

1. Person against whom complaint is filed: Commissioner Veronica Escobar _____
2. Please indicate the possible Code of Ethics rule violation by stating the relevant paragraphs in the code. (The code is available online at www.epcounty.com/ethics/code.htm or may be obtained from Human Resources at (915) 546-2218, ext. 3203.):

§IV(A)(1); §IV(A)(2); §IV(B)(a); §IV(B)(b); §IV(C); §VIII(A); §VIII(B); IX(A) and XII

3. What are the details of your Complaint? (Please be specific with respect to names, dates and locations. Attach any additional pages if necessary.)

In the order to defend herself Commissioner Veronica Escobar was required to hire/request the assistance of a local attorney by the name of John Wenke who is bar certified in employment law and has a history of litigating against the County of El Paso and the City of El Paso. Many of these representations have yielded Mr. Wenke great wealth in the numerous victories against insurance companies and governmental agencies. The issue in question with the representation of Commissioner Escobar are the issues that at no time were the cost of his representation to her nor how Mr. Wenke was going to be repaid for his representation of Commissioner Escobar who may or may not be a personal friend of the commissioner or of her husband an US Attorney, which raises a question of possible conflict because the work being provided was done for free or as a gift. This action would have required her to file an affidavit stating any possible conflicts either by her as a decision maker and a voting authority or to the fact that Mr. Wenke may now or within sometime in the near future have legal matters in front of the Commissioner which she will have to make a settlement decision. Thus, it was not reported as required which raises questions as to the possible tic for tat method of payment for his legal services to the Commissioner which may place her in a difficult situation when it comes to legal matters that Commissioner Escobar may have to vote on any possible settlement offers. Not to mention issues about gifts and/or contributions to her campaign, be it as a in-kind or direct financial contribution which was not reported per Texas law and or placed on Commissioners Court disclosing it’s acceptance.





4. Possible Witnesses to Violation: County of El Paso Ethics Commissioners, Comm. Dan Haggerty, County of El Paso via web-cast; County Commissioners of El Paso; Lee Shapleigh; ACA Holly Lytle; other members of the County Attorney’s Office, Theresa Caballero, Stuart Leeds and County Judge Anthony Cobos


(Incomplete complaint forms will not be accepted.)



SIGNATURE: ________________________ DATE: August 30, 2009




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