Chuck Rosenthal Admits To Deleting Email Messages

The embattled Harris County district attorney admitted before a federal judge here Friday that in violation of two subpoenas and a court order, he deleted as many as 3,500 e-mail messages sought in a civil rights lawsuit. He said he thought the messages were available on backup files.

Appearing at a contempt hearing in Federal District Court, the district attorney, Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., appeared to open himself to possible perjury charges by acknowledging that in earlier sworn testimony he had provided false information about how he deleted some messages. He called his earlier testimony “an error.”