On June 30, 2016, the Dallas Morning News reported that a Dallas County District Attorney’s Office chief investigator pleaded guilty in federal court to corruption charges. The investigator pleaded guilty to an indictment alleging that he accepted a bribe from a convicted sex offender. The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted the man for failing to register as a sex offender. However, the District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case. An investigation by federal authorities revealed the sex offender paid off the District Attorney’s Office chief investigator in 2013 with a bribe disguised as an opportunity to invest in the sex offender’s business.
Prosecutors are sworn to uphold the Constitution and follow the law. A prosecutor’s job is to fight for justice, not merely a conviction. Winning at all costs is not the calling of a prosecutor. One man embroiled in the District Attorney’s Office bribery scandal, who was a First Assistant District Attorney at the time, defended his actions by claiming he was making the appropriate decision on the case by dismissing a case with insufficient evidence. A prosecutor is ethically bound to dismiss a case lacking evidence. The former First Assistant stated that he dismissed the failure to register charge because there was not enough proof the defendant committed a crime. From that perspective, it appears that the District Attorney’s Office made the correct decision.
Federal authorities are rarely satisfied by convicting relatively low-hanging fruit. They want to prosecute corruption at the highest levels. Some speculate that the upper-echelon of the District Attorney’s Office is the subject of a federal bribery investigation. The federal judge will sentence the chief investigator in October of this year. The delay in sentencing gives federal law enforcement a chance to investigate the case even further to see how high up the chain of command they can go. The federal authorities can ask the chief investigator to cooperate with their investigation. The sentencing judge can take into consideration at sentencing the chief investigator’s cooperation with federal authorities and reduce the man’s sentence. As the case stands at this time, the investigator faces a five-year federal prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. The former First Assistant District Attorney under scrutiny for dismissing the sex offender’s case denied further wrongdoing in the District Attorney’s Office.
The question of whether the bribery scandal reaches the executive level is interesting. Commentators question several maneuvers made by the District Attorney’s Office with the sex offender’s case. First, the sex offender was found in Las Vegas. Instead of the Sheriff’s Office bringing the man back to Dallas to face charges, the chief investigator brought the sex offender back. People questioned this procedure because the Sheriff’s Office employs trained deputies to rendite, or bring people to Texas from other states to face prosecution. Rendition does not fall within the chief investigator’s job description. The bribery scheme was apparently hatched during the return flight from Las Vegas to Dallas. Secondly, the First Assistant District Attorney’s involvement with dismissing the case is out of place. Many other individuals were capable of making the decision to dismiss the case. People interviewed for the Dallas Morning News’ article stated it was unusual for a higher level assistant district attorney, like a First Assistant, to be involved with those decisions but it did happen occasionally. Further investigation can resolve those questions. It is important to note that the former First Assistant vehemently denied any wrongdoing by him or others in his office.
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