Ten years (and one week) ago, four defeated Democratic candidates for the State House filed a lawsuit against the Texas Association of Business, claiming that TAB funneled illegal corporate contributions into state legislative races in the 2002 election. As you can see from what I wrote at the time – yes, I was blogging that [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Tom DeLay’
Colyandro takes a plea
Missed this on Friday. It took five minutes for Capitol figure John Colyandro to end a decade-long saga that swept his boss, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, out of Congress and politics altogether. Colyandro, the last individual with charges pending in the DeLay money-laundering case, pleaded guilty Friday to lesser charges of accepting [...]
DeLay argues his case before the appeals court panel
It’s an old, familiar argument. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay should not go to prison on money-laundering charges because the 2002 campaign transaction involved a $190,000 check and not cash, his lawyer argued before the Third Court of Appeals Wednesday. Houston lawyer Brian Wice said the Legislature later changed the money-laundering statute to [...]
Doesn’t he know that Valjean was French?
Poor, pitiful Tom DeLay. DeLay, and his attorney, Brian Wice, are hoping to get his convictions overturned. On Oct. 10, they will finally get a chance to make their case to the 3rd Court of Appeals, arguing the once-powerful Republican leader did nothing wrong and is the victim of a political vendetta, a claim that [...]
More DeLay trial news
Some other action on the Tom DeLay front this week. The Tom DeLay legal marathon inched forward Wednesday on two separate fronts. John Colyandro, a DeLay co-defendant who has been under investigation since 2003, found out his trial won’t start until next year. Meanwhile, DeLay, who is fighting his conviction and three-year prison sentence, finally [...]
Henson removed from DeLay appeals case
Score one for Team DeLay. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has won a tactical victory with the removal of Justice Diane Henson, a Democrat, from his appeal. A motion to remove Henson was granted late Friday without comment and posted on the 3rd Court of Appeals’ website. The action might put the much-delayed [...]
Former DeLay aide Ellis pleads guilty
This was out of the blue. Tom DeLay’s chief political aide, Jim Ellis, pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony charge of making an illegal campaign contribution during the 2002 election. Ellis, who headed DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority political action committee, was the aide who negotiated an exchange of $190,000 of corporate money for [...]
A trio of trial updates
Planned Parenthood versus Texas: A ruling affecting health care, including contraception, for some 130,000 low-income Texas women probably won’t come until late this year as Planned Parenthood and the state of Texas plan for mid-October oral arguments in their legal fight. The state is appealing a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel granted [...]
Will the last judge on the Third Court of Appeals please issue a ruling on Tom DeLay?
The way this is going, we may have to start importing judges from other states. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s appeal has taken an unexpected turn as three Republican justices removed themselves from his money laundering case in just a matter of days. That leaves the fate of DeLay, a high-profile Republican who [...]
“Checks aren’t cash” back before 3rd Court of Appeals
Sometimes when you least expect it, Tom DeLay pops up in the news. It would defy common sense to reverse the three-year prison sentence of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay because his money-laundering case involved a check instead of cash, Travis County prosecutors are arguing. Their argument comes in a legal brief to [...]
DeLay files appeal of his conviction
The man has been a boon for the defense bar, I’ll say that much for him. Tom DeLay’s appellate lawyer tapped a movie musical and Shakespeare in a wide-ranging appeal that argues the former U.S. House majority leader was wrongly convicted of conspiring to launder corporate dollars into campaign donations. In 2002, DeLay’s political committee [...]
Taking aim at the Voting Rights Act
In responding to a petition by State Rep. Marc Veasey and State Sen. Wendy Davis to intervene against the state in its lawsuit to get the federal court to pre-clear the new maps, the Attorney General responded by saying that the Voting Rights Act is too big a burden for it to deal with. The [...]
Lampson says he’s looking at CD14
Some potential good news from the Chron story about Ron Paul’s announcement that he will not seek re-election in CD14: One with a definite interest in the race is Nick Lampson, a Beaumont Democrat who represented Texas’ 9th Congressional District from 1997 to 2005 before falling victim to the controversial mid-decade redistricting effort engineered by [...]
They like him! They really like him!
Here’s your heartwarming story for the week. The Republican Party of Fort Bend County Executive Committee has unanimously passed a resolution in support of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay expressing “appreciation for his tireless service to our community, the State of Texas and the nation and the price that he has paid for being [...]
Time for the biennial attack on the Travis County DA
Every two years, some Republican legislators try to kill the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s office. An amendment tacked on to the House budget bill approved last week would shift roughly $3.4 million a year from the district attorney’s office to the Texas attorney general’s office. The funding shift would happen [...]
New judge in DeLay associates’ case
Meet the new judge, fourth in a series: The co-defendants of Tom DeLay, who was convicted last fall of conspiring to launder corporate money into political donations, will be tried before state District Judge David Crain, according to a court order filed Wednesday. Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield, the presiding judge of the Central Texas region, [...]
More on Judge Priest recusing himself
We now have a reason for Judge Pat Priest recusing himself in the upcoming trial of DeLay associates Jim Ellis and John Colyandro. Senior District Judge Pat Priest , who sentenced DeLay to three years in prison for laundering corporate money into political donations, urged the lawyers for Jim Ellis and John Colyandro to consider [...]
Judge Priest recuses himself in DeLay associates’ trial
Didn’t see this coming. Two associates of former U.S House Majority leader Tom DeLay will get a new judge. State District Judge Pat Priest of San Antonio, who oversaw the month-long trial of DeLay last fall, surprisingly recused himself this morning on a motion submitted by the defense. John Colyandro of Austin and Jim Ellis [...]
DeLay wants a do over
Good luck with that. Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s legal team on Wednesday filed a motion asking for a retrial for the former congressman, convicted last November on charges of money laundering and conspiracy. The motion, filed by DeLay’s attorney Dick DeGuerin, seeks a new trial, citing juror misconduct, misapplication of the state’s [...]
The Hammer goes to the slammer
Wow. Judge Pat Priest sentenced Tom DeLay to three years in prison. The three-year sentence was on the charge of conspiring to launder corporate money into political donations during the 2002 elections. On the charge of money laundering, DeLay was sentenced to five years but that was probated for 10 years. He was taken into [...]
Rats of a feather
My schadenfreude-o-meter goes to 11. As convicted felon Tom DeLay prepares to find out Monday whether he will go to jail or get probation, his lawyer complained Friday that Travis County prosecutors offered immunity for testimony from two former DeLay aides who later worked for disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. “They’ve offered to give immunity [...]
Trying Eversole
The Chron wonders if the freshly-indicted Jerry Eversole can beat the rap. That will depend on whether federal prosecutors can convince a jury that the gifts Surface gave Eversole and the actions the commissioner took that benefited Surface constitute conspiracy and bribery. The burden is on the prosecution to prove what legal observers variously call [...]
DeLay sentencing delayed
We won’t know the fate of convicted felon Tom DeLay (I do so love saying that) until after the new year. The sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 20 but DeLay’s lawyers have a conflict on that date. “It’s probably going to be some time in January,” said Gary Cobb, the lead prosecutor. “But that’s not [...]
Off to the appeals courts for DeLay
Whatever sentence awaits Tom DeLay – I strongly suspect it will be probation, but you never know – it will be a long time, if ever, before he begins serving it. DeLay’s lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin, expressed confidence on Friday the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Austin will rule in his favor because it [...]
DeLay convicted
Just in time for the holiday. Tom DeLay, the former U.S. House majority leader whose name became synonymous with the Republicans’ controversial rise to power in the Texas House, was found guilty today of laundering money in connection with the 2002 elections. Jurors sent a note on yellow legal paper that a verdict had been [...]
Still no verdict in the DeLay trial
Two days of deliberation, lots of questions being asked, but still no decision from the DeLay jury. They’ll try again today, and I’ll be a little surprised if they strike out again. Having said that, a hung jury is certainly within the realm of possibility here. I just wonder if the Travis County DA’s office [...]
DeLay jury deliberating
No verdict yet, and the jury has been sent home for the night. Prosecutors and the defense made closing statements to the jury about whether a $190,000 corporate money swap between DeLay’s Texas committee and the Republican National Committee actually amounted to money laundering and whether DeLay had command control over two political aides. They [...]
DeLay trial: Defense rests, summaries to begin
Thursday was a wrap, at least as far as evidence and testimony go in the Tom DeLay trial. This much both sides seemed to agree on: DeLay’s chief political aide, Jim Ellis, negotiated a deal with the Republican National Committee to donate $190,000 to seven Texas candidates from its noncorporate account. In exchange, Texans for [...]
DeLay trial: The prosecution rests
The prosecution has rested its case in the money laundering trial of Tom DeLay. Visiting Judge Pat Priest today denied former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s motions for a directed verdict of innocent in the political money laundering trial against him. Travis county prosecutors rested their case this morning. Defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin argued the [...]
How long is this thing gonna take?
We may have the Tom DeLay trial to entertain us into December. [Monday] prosecutors announced that they might be done by next Tuesday. That would give the defense only a couple of days if they want to make final arguments by the Monday of the short holiday week. (The court hasn’t been working Fridays.) It [...]
DeLay trial update
The state keeps presenting its case. A former Republican National Committee official testified Thursday that he was told Tom DeLay wanted the RNC to swap corporate money for campaign donations to Texas candidates during the 2002 election campaign. Terry Nelson, the RNC chief of staff at the time, testified that DeLay’s political aide, Jim Ellis, [...]
Opening arguments at the DeLay trial
It’s a little weird that the Tom DeLay trial could be something other than the top news story, isn’t it? The political money laundering trial of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay opened Monday with the Sugar Land Republican defiantly declaring his innocence. After prosecutors read the two-count conspiracy and money laundering indictment against [...]