Chuck Rosenthal's Legal Bills

Have you ever wondered who was paying DA's Chuck Rosenthal's legal bills for his contempt charges? Well, wonder no more; it's you.

District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has hired former U.S. Attorney Ron Woods to represent him while the Texas attorney general investigates whether Rosenthal broke the law by using his county computer for political campaigning.

County taxpayers, meanwhile, are paying for other lawyers to defend Rosenthal from an effort to have him held in criminal contempt for deleting e-mail that had been subpoenaed for a civil lawsuit.

Woods' confirmation that he is now working for Rosenthal comes almost a week after attorneys for the county's top prosecutor halted a contempt hearing in which Rosenthal admitted making erroneous statements in a sworn affidavit about deleting several hundred e-mails.

What do you think about the taxpayers paying for Chuck Rosenthal's defense?

Houston Agency Administer Housing Assistance

A small, Houston-based agency with 25 employees has been chosen to administer housing assistance for about 11,000 families around the country who were displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The Harris County Housing Authority will pay rent and provide social services to about 6,000 families in the Houston area, 4,000 in New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish and about 1,000 more families in 37 states, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials said Tuesday.

This represents more than one-third of the roughly 30,000 families enrolled nationally in HUD's Disaster Housing Assistance Program, or DHAP.

The HUD program, which began Dec. 1, will require participating families to make gradually escalating payments toward their rent starting in March until the program ends in March 2009. It will provide case management and counseling services to help evacuees find jobs and take other steps to rebuild their lives.

Siegler Wants Chuck Rosenthal To Resign

Kelly Siegler, an assistant prosecutor, has joined the go Chuck go bandwagon. Although she hopes to replace Chuck Rosenthal, she has recognized that he is bad for the district attorney's office. Here are some recent statements she made about old "Chucky Boy":

Rosenthal “has made a lot of serious mistakes. Everybody here knows that; everybody in my office knows that,”. It's sad. It's tragic. And it's time for Chuck to resign.

“He's also my friend. He's not a bad man. He needs to go.”

“But do you really think that Chuck Rosenthal is me?” she asked. “And if you could only know how many conversations I have had with him to try to get him to do things differently or to listen. The problem is, Chuck quit listening to all of us a long time ago.”

Perhaps the only thing Chuck Rosenthal would hear is being found guilty for tampering with evidence and perjury. Sometimes it takes a tough strong message of impending prison time to get someone like him to listen.

What Will Happen To Chuck Rosenthal?

Harris County District Attorney, Chuck Rosenthal could be fined or jailed if U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt finds him in contempt of court. He did not testify Thursday but was expected to take the stand when the hearing resumed Friday. He declined to comment as he left the courtroom.

An attorney handling a civil rights lawsuit against the Harris County Sheriff's Department had requested all the e-mails Rosenthal sent and received between July and mid-October.

Rosenthal has handed over more than 1,500 e-mails that remained on his computer or were recovered. Hoyt released a batch of them in early January, including messages that contained pornographic, racist and political messages. Love notes between the married prosecutor and his secretary also were mistakenly released and then resealed.

EPA Recognizes Houston As A 'Green Power Partner'

The City of Houston, which was recognized earlier this week as a top local government purchasing green power, has also been named as a top green power purchaser among national entities. The Environmental Protection Agency ranked the Bayou City at No. 12 out of 25 on the National Top 25 list of green power partners for using wind power for 20 percent of its purchased-electricity needs.

"Texas leads the nation in wind power production, and Dallas and Houston are leading the way in showing other cities how green power can help protect the environment," said EPA Regional Administrator Richard Greene. "By shifting to wind and other renewable power sources, cities can cut greenhouse gas emissions and change the way we generate energy."

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biogas, as well as low-impact hydropower.

Former Houston Mayor Dies

Houston’s former mayor Louie Welch has died. Welch, who served as mayor from 1964-1973, passed away at his Harris County home Sunday morning. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer in October.

Welch Middle School is named after the former mayor. After he left office, Welch maintained an active role in city affairs, serving as chairman of the Houston Chamber of Commerce for 12 years.

He is survived by his wife, nine children and 21 grandchildren.

Ministers Want Harris County Sheriff To Resign

Remember when the Sheriff's Department announced that they would be deleting their emails? Well, this may be the reason why:

Members of a black ministers group on Thursday called on Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas to resign for sending e-mails depicting national civil rights figures Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton getting zapped and reduced to a puff of smoke.

The e-mail, obtained by Channel 13 and aired on a recent news segment, includes a copy of an editorial cartoon that shows Jackson and Sharpton looking up at a star in the sky. A bubble over their heads reads: "Oh, wishing star, we wish for an end to racial strife and bigotry."

I guess they wanted to destroy this little gem after Chuck Rosenthal's emails were made public. I wonder what other types of emails they have. It is really pathetic that these adult do not have anything else better to do.

Mary Kay conference to be held in Houston

This week's Mary Kay Inc. conference in Houston will pump $8.5 million into the city's economy, according to the company. The Dallas-based, direct-sell cosmetics company is hosting its annual leadership convention in Houston from Jan. 23 to 30 at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

As part of the festivities, Mary Kay will make a $20,000 donation to The Old Sixth Ward Neighborhood Association in honor of its founder, Mary Kay Ash, who grew up in the neighborhood. The company also is making a $20,000 donation to the Houston Area Women's Center to aid in the prevention of domestic violence against women.

Federal Probe of Brown Officials Widens

The federal corruption probe of former Mayor Lee Brown's administration has taken on a new twist. Federal prosecutors have now turned their attention to the deals to construct the $53 million Houston Emergency Center and two Fire Department facilities:

Prosecutors are seeking records on the involvement of several people, including Mike Surface, who resigned his Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. post three days after the subpoenas were served; his business partner, Andrew Schatte; and the former boyfriend of a former Brown administration official who worked as a consultant for them, Garland Hardeman.

Something smells rotten here in Houston; let's hope the feds can weed out the corruption. Jim Letten is trying to weed it out in New Orleans if Stan "Pampy" Barre continues to inform on those he bribed.

Can Anyone Trust Houston's Crime Lab?

When employees are accused of cheating on an open book proficiency test that assesses those employees knowledge of lab results, can anyone trust those results? Pass criminal cases should be evaluated in order to determine the accuracy of those convictions. Nothing could be worse than spending time in prison for a crime you did not commit. The crime lab already has a bad history.

The lab's DNA section was shut down in 2002 after an independent audit found inaccuracies in analysis procedures. Independent investigators have identified 180 blood-analysis cases from the 1980s and early 1990s which showed problems with HPD serology work.

CAN YOU IMAGINE BEING IN PRISON FOR A CRIME YOU DID NOT COMMIT?

This week, 47-year-old inmate Ronald Taylor, who has been in prison for 12 years on a rape charge, was exonerated after DNA retesting showed another man committed the crime. The Houston crime lab originally reported that it could not do a DNA analysis because a bed sheet it tested did not contain semen.

Two other men have been released from prison during the review of the crime lab's work.

IT MAKES ME WONDER WHETHER SOME OLD CRIMINAL CASES SHOULD BE REVIEWED AS WELL.

Although police officials said the alleged cheating did not affect any evidence, the Harris County District Attorney's Office is sending a letter to defense attorneys and defendants with pending cases involving work done by crime lab analysts.