Up-Chuck
by David Benzion · 01/03/2008 7:10 amWho-wee, the goings-on of Harris County Republicans have made the New York Times! (NEW YORK CITY?!?!)
Eager to distance themselves from a political sex scandal, leaders of the Harris County Republican Party on Wednesday quashed the re-election plans of Texas’ most powerful prosecutor, District Attorney Charles A. Rosenthal Jr.
It makes ya’ proud, don’t it?
Charles A. Rosenthal Jr.’s amorous e-mail messages to his secretary were disclosed last week as part of an unrelated lawsuit.
In what looked like a last-minute deal before Wednesday’s primary filing deadline, Mr. Rosenthal, a prosecutor for 30 years in the state’s most populous county, agreed under pressure to drop his bid in November for a third term as district attorney as the party announced it would welcome new candidates.
Since his public apology last Friday for a series of recent amorous e-mail exchanges with his executive secretary on office computers, Mr. Rosenthal had insisted he would not abandon his plans to run again, even as the Houston Area Pastor Council, representing 150 ministers, urged him to drop out.
But late Wednesday, party leaders said that Mr. Rosenthal had withdrawn, and that at least one other hopeful had registered: Jim Leitner, a former county prosecutor.
After a day of closed-door meetings, Jared Woodfill, the county Republican chairman, appeared outside party headquarters in Houston to make the brief announcement that Mr. Rosenthal had asked that his name be taken off the ballot, giving party leaders until Friday to accept filings. Mr. Rosenthal is still scheduled to serve out his term through the end of 2008.
Why does any of this matter?
Among the Democrats, C. O. Bradford, a former Houston police chief, has filed to run.
We’ll have more to say about that later, but for now, a simple but powerful “shudder” will suffice.
Highlighted in bold throughout the rest of this post are some subtle hints as to why we suspect local GOP figures were so insistent Rosenthal take this course of action.
Mr. Rosenthal, 61, did not respond to calls for comment. Married to his second wife, Cindy, a retired agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Rosenthal apologized for the exchanges with his secretary, Kerry Stevens, with whom he has said he had an affair in the 1980s while married to his first wife.
In one message in August, Mr. Rosenthal wrote, “The very next time I see you I want to kiss you behind your right ear.” The approximately 50 messages to Ms. Stevens were among at least 130 inadvertently disclosed as attachments to a federal court civil lawsuit motion that was briefly unsealed last week.
Irony alert:
Mr. Rosenthal has sought to keep the e-mail messages sealed, citing “zones of privacy” carved out by the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 ruling overturning the state’s ban on sodomy — although Mr. Rosenthal had argued the case for Texas and the legality of the anti-sodomy laws.
Guess it’s all a question of whose ox is getting gored. (bah dum dum)
Here’s an important twist.
The lawsuit involving the e-mail was brought by two brothers, Sean Carlos Ibarra and Erik Adam Ibarra, who say they were abused and arrested after filming sheriff’s deputies mistreating a neighboring family during a search and contend that Mr. Rosenthal failed to pursue the complaints. A lawyer for the brothers, Lloyd E. Kelley, has sought all of Mr. Rosenthal’s e-mail messages under court order.
We read earlier this week of Rosenthal complaining that lawyer Kelley had close connections to Democrat candidate Bradford, and the request for emails was little more than “bare-knuckle politics.”
Yeah, well duh. Bare-knuckle politics is what happens when you continue to employ as your executive assistant a women with whom you’ve had an affair, and send her amorous emails as late as last August, on an email account subject to open-records requests, [REDACTED BY SELF].
The trial was to have started next Monday but Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt of Federal District Court in Houston has advised lawyers of a delay in light of the publicity surrounding Mr. Rosenthal.
In court filings Mr. Rosenthal has acknowledged deleting up to 2,514 other e-mail messages that he said he thought were backed up elsewhere.
“Rosenthal made an error by deleting e-mails,” his lawyer, Ronald C. Lewis said in a court motion on Dec. 18.
Among 1,111 other e-mail messages not destroyed and turned over under seal to Mr. Kelley, were some characterized in Mr. Rosenthal’s filings as: jokes, “campaign related e-mail” and “messages between personal friends.”
It was not clear what the campaign-related messages referred to, as it is illegal to use state offices for political activities.
NOTE: SERIOUS SARCASM ALERT
It’s too bad all those “jokes” Mr. Rosenthal sent will never see the light of day. They might have humanized him further in the eyes of voters, perhaps even built public support for his tenure among Houston’s diverse population that includes many women, gays, ethnic minorities and social conservatives.
As for the “campaign related e-mail,” hey, who can keep track of this stuff? Did anyone out there know before now that it was illegal (and wrong) to use taxpayer-supported computer equipment to pursue re-election? Can the chief law-enforcement officer of the most populous county in Texas really be expected to know that sort of thing?
And is it now a crime to send messages to “personal friends”? Have we outlawed friendship, Sir?! Is the companionship of others now a felony, Madam?! Shall our public servants consign themselves to a solitary and lonely life, devoid of human relationship and the fellowship of others?! Perish the thought…
What a glorious start to 2008.
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You computer experts, I have a question. I thought even if something was deleted, it never really went away. Can’t they find a way to retrieve all his mush? It would make great reading. Also, if he sent things to her, wouldn’t they be on her computer also?
NEW YORK CITY!?!?….Get A Rope!
Nice post.
The power of the kitty strikes again.
#1 american woman, I’m not an expert, not even a pervert, but it is my understanding that when something is deleted the first few letters are removed from the title so a normal search can’t find the files. They stay there until they are written over which can be NEVER and a Big 80 Gig hard drive. So most of the time, they can be recovered by an expert, or a 7 year old kid.;=)
Our friendly young journalist(?), Lisa Falkenberg, has a column about Chuckie today. Frankly, Chuck’s an idiot on many fronts and Lisa is right to pounce. However, my wife was less than enthused to learn that, according to Lisa, marital fidelity is “an unrealistic standard of perfection”.
I’m unaware of the pert Ms. Falkenberg’s marital status, but I’d be willing to bet a dollar to a doughnut hole, that the current or future Mr. lisa Falkenberg might be surprised to learn that his expectation of marital fidelity is unrealistic.
Lisa really shows her disdain for folks that believe morality and religious conviction have an important place in maintaining the integrity of our social fabric.
I think it was Paul Burka at Texas Monthly who wrote a long article on Johnny Holmes when he neared retirement. There was a story about a Harris County DA office party (New Year’s?) in which Rosenthal almost lost his job for lighting a large package of firecrackers in an exit stairwell of the building. It created quite a panic among the partiers because the echo sounded very much like gunfire and LEOs from all agencies responded to the scene. I thought it was an exceptionally immature thing to do.
Yeah butcha shoulda seen ‘em scatter! You think Chuck’s last words before he lit the fuse was “Here, hold muh beer”?
Another interesting dimension to this case is Lloyd E. Kelley is the former City of Houston Controller and previously Special Advisor to Vice-President Al Gore. Anybody remember the defamation lawsuit he filed against Dolcefino and KTRK ? Wayne videotaped Kelley and his female assistant spending the day at a waterpark on City time. The background on this whole thing has got to be good. Where is Tim Fleck when you need him ?
AW
Deleted does not really mean gone. It can be recovered. Most of the emails turned over had been deleted and recovered. Now I had a client at one time that set his computers so that if you did not log off correctly the computers went into a continual fdisk. Thats a different matter.
Lawrence
Lisa’s a lost cause. But knowing who her employer is says it all.
Benzion: Excellent title to a very enlightening post! I heard on the news last night that he sent an e-mail withdrawing from the primary 3-minutes before deadline: 5:57 pm. Hilarious.
And to think I used to consider ole Louie Welch a ‘bad egg’ - by comparison he’s lQQkin more like a dang saint every day.
If sending emails on a company computer on company time is such a sin, I would be staked and quartered. This post is made on a company computer. I would be willing to bet that most of yours are also. It was not the most prudent thing for Chuck to do, but I just can not see the fuss that is being made. It isn’t like he stole something, they are emails. It did not cost the county a penny. I just don’t get it.
Most email servers are backed up on a daily basis; therefore, there is a very good chance most emails can be recovered.
bigmck, I think the big stink is the affair that is alluded to and the e-mails are the proof. Secondly, using company assets for personal use is usually frowned upon by most companies. Am I using a company asset right now? Sure. Did I get written confirmation from my boss that it is ok? You betcha. I helped write our company policy on computer usage, so I know what can happen if I am outside of our policy.
New Dell (well new 1 yr ago):
approx $1000
Dress code at work:NONE!
Smoking in office?: ALLOWED!
Being the same guy who asks the boss regarding computer usage AND gives the answers?:
PRICELESS!
You know what the really scary part of this entire deal is. How could a friggin Judge issue such a court order without knowing the ramifications of the order. Than after the press gets the copies of the emails the Judge rescinds the order and changes it. Something doesn’t pass the smell test IMHO.
And as an afterthought. If anyone thinks they can send an email or put anything on the web and think it is safe from viewing by anyone else, big brother included, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona up for sale at a good price.
#11
Katfish
Re: Louie Welch, rethinking Houston, and how the culture/city has degraded since Kathy Whitweird, the leadership we had was far superior to she and her successors.
#15 Katfish — “Dress code at work: NONE!”
Now that is an ugly mental image!!
Bring back Squatty!
opelousasKatfish - my sentiments exactly!
#18 - calm down there bubba - I promise you everyone here at the offices of Chez Katfish are fully clothed!
15 Whiskerfish
Put yer drawers on… company’s comin’
http://www.all4humor.com/images/files/Fat%20Cat.jpg
I saw a news report last night that Kelly Siegler may put her hat in the ring. She KICKS A$$!
I think she has about a 95% conviction rate. I was on a capitol murder trial with her as the prosecutor. Patton in a dress! If I did something and went to trial and saw her across the courtroom, I’d plead out… She is the one that prosecuted Susan Wright (the chick that stabbed her husband about 200 times). CBS 48hours Mystery did a story on this recently.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/23/48hours/main613467.shtml
#23 - Kelly Seigler’s apparently in. That could be both a good thing and a bad thing though. The good side is she’s an extremely successful prosecutor, and is far more capable in the courtroom than Chuck ever was (remember the sodomy law case at the SCOTUS?).
The bad side is that she’s an insider and will be a continuation of the office culture of the Rosenthal administration. If this email flap has shown anything, it’s that there are serious problems with the DA office culture right now. As the unreleased emails filter out (and they eventually will when all case wraps up and all the news stations file FOIAs) we will learn very quickly that the problem extended well beyond Rosenthal and his secretary.
If Seigler runs, she would do herself good to campaign on continuing the law and order tradition that the Harris County DA is known for, but also make it clear that there is a clear distance between her and Rosenthal. The last thing we need right now is the appearance that Chuck has annointed a successor.
Also fwiw, Jim Leitner would be an outstanding DA if he stays in the race. Ask just about any attorney or prosecutor in the county - his reputation is about as crystal clean as they come. Given the dirt we’ve seen under Rosenthal’s rug, that sort of reputation may be just the antidote we need to beat Bradford.
I heard rumblings about this on the radio.
What about hiring ones girlfriend to a prominent and well paying position with extra benefits such as company car? is that legal?
Kraut, if Bradford wins, I will be forced to bang my head on my desk. It’s not a pretty sight.
If Bradford wins “we inna heap a trouble”
Bradford’s got that whole CRIME LAB thing hanging around his neck. It was his baby. There’s a lot of HPD critters that would come out from under that rock….
The only thing going for Bradford would be his (how should I put it???) abundance of melanin. He was a welfare sergeant. The Edwards lawsuit got him his rank. He never worked his way up in the chain of command like he should have, and that should be used against him. He was still called ‘Sgt Bradford’ behind his back while he was chief. He was not revered as a good leader by those under him. He was a political animal that insulated himself with people that could take a hit for him. He was good about doing studies and forming committees for something a good leader would just make happen. IE… the color of the police cars. They had to do a $180,000 (if memory serves correctly) study to determine whether to get white cars or black ones. They chose white because black ones got too hot in the summer. (All they had to do was ask the patrol officers for free)
Fasternu, this is the problem… you just can’t think from a bureaucrat’s perspective.
If HPD had just gone out willy-nilly and purchased white rather than black police cars, they would have been sued for subconscious racial discrimination. Lawyers fees, court costs, settlement etc. easily would have topped $1 million.
By commissioning a formal, scientific and objective study of the issue, such a lawsuit was avoided. Sure, it cost $180k… but that’s still $820k less than the alternative.
Chief Bradford is to be credited for his far-sighted stewardship of tax-payer dollars.
#30 Faster
Bradford and I had one thing in common. We both used the same law firm. My attorney told me the exact same thing while Bradford was still in office.
And he used stronger words. I doubt Bradford will make it in.
Is Bradford an attorney? I just assumed that would be a requirement for DA. If that is not a requirement, we might see Lee P back in town.
BZ funny thing is, they had to get rid of the blue cars because it was costing them money to have them painted blue. It was cheaper to get black or white cars from the factory and put decals on them. But, in the interest of saving money, they conducted the test costing $180,000 (I think this is correct, The HPPU Sentinel did a story on it) to save money.
See screaming headline update; the Chron is reporting the sorry S.O.B. may be about to pull a Larry Craig and put his name back on the ballot.