Sean Teare
A judge signed off on Harris County prosecutors handing their case against three former employees for County Judge Lina Hidalgo to the Texas attorney general, effectively ridding District Attorney Sean Teare’s office of the politically fraught charges brought on by his predecessor.
Lawyers for the three staffers gathered around the judge’s bench Thursday with prosecutors from both agencies as no one objected to the move.
Kim Ogg, the former district attorney ousted in the 2024 primary, invited the attorney general’s prosecutors to take over the 2022 case, saying Teare could not be trusted, but she stopped short of recusing her office outright. Her decision effectively preserved Teare’s ability to decide the next steps in the cases against the three county workers amid allegations that they steered a COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract to Elevate Strategies, a political consulting firm with Democratic ties.
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Teare assumed office Jan. 1 and filed a motion to recuse his office the following day, citing “intense political and media scrutiny” over the contract investigation and ensuing indictments against Alex Triantaphyllis, Wallis Nader and Aaron Dunn.
“The orderly administration of justice requires that there be no perceived bias in the prosecution of these cases,” wrote Joshua Reiss, general counsel for Teare’s office, in their request for a recusal.
Judge Hazel Jones approved the motion and quizzed the lawyers on both sides Thursday morning whether an outcome was being discussed. It was, the lawyers said, without elaborating.
Dunn’s lawyer, Derek Hollingsworth, said the recusal should have happened sooner because it wasn’t until prosecutors with Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office stepped in that he felt his client’s case — which he deemed a wrongful prosecution — received a critical eye.
The lawyer believes Paxton prosecutors have made progress in reviewing the case because defense attorneys for the trio have received fresh evidence since they took on the prosecution in April.
“My understanding is that the attorney general’s office is now the first administration to actually look deeply at this case and to investigate it thoroughly,” Hollingsworth said. “I hope that we’re close to a resolution.”
See here for the previous update. I suspect we’ll see some kind of action on this soon – whether that’s a dismissal of some or all charges or a plea deal, we’ll see. This has gone on long enough, whatever happens next. We should know more in February, when the next court date is.