We were hoping to give the newsletter and your inboxes a rest before the weekend’s arrival, but current events compel another round.
It seems a blockbuster report by the Texas Scorecard may be slipping through the cracks— perhaps because it goes counter to the narrative being constructed against Operation Lone Star, alleging that it is a corrupt disgrace— a racist effort, by racist people.
Investigative Reporter Robby Montoya has the details here.
Feel free to click the link— it deserves your own personal assessment, but we’re going to spend some time breaking it down for you. As good a job as Mr. Montoya does— some aspects of what he is pointing out may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer who hasn’t been obsessively following this stuff.
Essentially, the piece alleges that overseers and mandarins in charge of indigent defense efforts are purposely sandbagging, sabotaging, and trying to pervert the legal process associated with Operation Lone Star. At best, one could call it lawfare, taken to an extreme end. What’s incredibly sad, is one could also argue that it is being done against the wishes of their own clients— the poor, downtrodden migrants they’re supposed to be serving. If one felt charitable, one could argue that it’s a case of them knowing what’s better for their clients than they do— a particularly paternalistic and disgusting avenue of examination.
But we get ahead of ourselves. We will return to this thread of the story in just a moment.
First, meet a man named Philip Wischkaemper. Chances are Philip’s a real good guy. Great with a conversation, fun to have a have a beer with. Smart and successful. Philip’s also the attorney in charge of an organization called the “Lubbock Private Defender Office,” or LPDO, for short.
The LPDO is a nonprofit corporation, funded by the State of Texas, meant to improve the quality of the defense for indigent defendants, in situations where there are not enough public defenders in a given location. Think of them as a state-sponsored clearinghouse for efforts to go out and find attorneys in private practice who can on an as-needed basis operate as public defenders.
The situation in Kinney County and other spots along the border would seem tailor made for their efforts.
A Texas Scorecard investigation of how illegal immigrants are being processed revealed an opaque self-dealing and self-sabotaging process.
…allegations that a high-ranking official of a taxpayer-funded nonprofit corporation (which provides illegal border-crossers with legal defense) has been strong-arming defense attorneys to go against their clients’ wishes and keep them in jail. This would effectively sabotage Operation Lone Star.
—Robby Montoya, Texas Scorecard
The high-ranking official Mr. Montoya is referencing is Philip Wischkaemper, by the way.
Mr. Montoya then goes on to lay out the basics of legal ethics, and how attorneys are supposed to abide by their clients’ wishes. Seems like pretty simple stuff right? Weird.
Well, defense attorney Sylvia Delgado, who represented some of the first illegal aliens brought to court in Kinney County, has filed an official complaint against Wischkaemper.
“I and other defense counsel have been discouraged from pleading our OLS clients either guilty and even nolo contendere [no contest],” Delgado told Texas Scorecard.
Delgado was getting paid by LPDO for her work defending those arrested during Operation Lone Star. “That’s part of why I have been so reluctant to not follow their directives, because I don’t want to lose my income.”
After Texas Scorecard sent open records requests to Kinney County, which borders Mexico, we obtained a December 15 email in which Delgado informed prosecutors of Wischkaemper’s actions.
Brent Smith is of course, the County Attorney, managing the prosecution of misdemeanor trespassing cases in Kinney County.
Mr. Montoya’s piece again:
Delgado alleges LPDO’s Philip Wischkaemper put his personal political interests ahead of her clients’ best interests and tried to stop her from following her own clients’ wishes.
“[On November 18] I went in front of the court, and I was going to plead a guy nolo contendere [no contest], and he was going to resolve his case that day and get his money back,” Delgado recalled. “In the midst of doing that, I got a phone call, and it was Philip and he was not happy with me.”
She said Wischkaemper pushed her not to plead her client, but to “find another way to do this.” She replied that pleading is what her client wanted. “I said, ‘But listen to me, it’s not like he’s going to go to jail here. He is in Mexico. He’s already been deported. He’s already gone home voluntarily. He wants his money back. He put up $1,200. For a person from Mexico, that is a huge amount of money.”
Wischkaemper would not relent. Caught between the state bar’s requirement that she follow her client’s wishes and Wischkaemper’s pressure, Delgado became creative. She asked Judge Kitty Schild if they could change her client’s $1,200 cash bond into a “no fee PR bond,” letting him stay out on bond but return his money. “I just created a new hybrid bond that I’ve never even heard of,” she said. Much to her surprise, Judge Schild agreed, which struck Delgado as odd.
Judge Kitty Schild is one of the three Judges initially appointed by the State of Texas to assist with the processing of cases in Kinney County. They were dismissed by the County, following accusations of ex-parte communications with defense attorneys, excluding prosecutors and essentially making deals on the side. It is an allegation they have denied. The dismissal of the judges and their replacement with a rotating selection of West Texas County Judges has been blasted by critics, believing a possibly corrupt action was underway. Consider the possibility that their nose for strange dealings may’ve just been tardy in detecting problems.
Ms. Delgado, and Mr. Montoya then go on to detail another phone call between her and Wischkaemper, on the 18th of November, accusing her of not helping “the cause.”
He said, “Listen, if we don’t plead anybody, if you’ll just talk your clients into sitting in jail, and just wait and say to them, ‘Just be patient, just don’t plead yet, just sit in jail and wait.’ Then, if we all stick together and don’t plead any cases, eventually … DPS officers are going to start retiring. They’re retiring in droves right now anyway, and in two years, when these things go before the court, all those witnesses will have left DPS. There will be no more witnesses, and we will not have folded.'”
—Attorney Sylvia Delgado, quoting Philip Wischkaemper, as quoted by Texas Scorecard
Ms. Delgado had the foresight to arrange a witness to these conversations. An assistant named Brian Gildon, who provided Texas Scorecard with a sworn affidavit detailing his own version of things— largely paralleling Ms. Delgado’s.
We are struggling not to just wholesale cut and paste whole tracts from Mr. Montoya’s piece. It is that well detailed, sourced, and constructed. He continues laying out, piece by piece, training videos for attorneys, made by Wischkaemper— further emails— further sworn affidavits and complaints with the Texas State Bar. One filed December 15th— the same day Wischkaemper apparently emailed Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan, with news about Delgado’s status with the LPDO.
“I am removing Ms. Delgado from the cases that were on the docket this morning and will have them reassigned to new attorneys by the end of the week,” Wischkaemper wrote. “I have concerns about the notice to Ms. Delgado’s clients who did not appear at the docket this morning.”
Delgado shot back that afternoon, requesting a hearing. “Philip is acting in a retaliatory fashion against me in this and many other instances because I plead [sic] five clients guilty.” She reiterated her charge that Wischkaemper had “directed me and all the OLS defense counsel to refuse to plead our clients guilty even if they are guilty and even if it is their desire (and it is) to plead guilty.”
Texas Scorecard sought comment and confirmation from the State Bar of Texas about Delgado’s grievance. Claire Reynolds, public affairs counsel with the bar, said their office could not confirm “whether such a complaint exists.”
“It can take several months for the whole process to be completed,” she said, explaining that after a grievance is filed, the bar has 30 days to review and either “dismiss it or upgrade it for a fuller investigation.” If upgraded, the accused attorney has 30 days to respond. The chief disciplinary counsel for the bar then conducts an investigation into whether there is reason to believe professional misconduct took place. The matter is then either presented to a grievance panel for a hearing or proceeds to litigation.
—Robby Montoya, Texas Scorecard
Pretty hot stuff no? It gets hotter. Remember— taxpayers are paying for this. The State of Texas confiscates citizens’ money and turns it over to what seem like overzealous lawfare operators willing to violate their own clients’ wishes in order to castrate and gut efforts by the self-same Government.
In other words, it’s as if the State of Texas is some filthy lunatic, staring at his own face in a dirty speckled mirror, and slapping it with the right hand and then the left, again and again.
Montoya then goes on to deliver some background on the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, or “TIDC.”
The TIDC is a body of Texas Government— a bureaucratic arm that’s meant to improve public defense. Montoya notes that in July they sent a quarter-of-a-million dollars to the LPDO and Wischkaemper.
A month later, they increased the amount to $1.4 Million for the LPDO.
Then, in October, they kicked almost $9 1/2 million over toward the organization.
From here, Montoya then starts to delve into the background of the TIDC. Who the board is. Who appointed them. Who do they report to?
Six of those on the 13 member board were all appointed by Governor Greg Abbott.
Weird! So far, none have voiced any dissent related to these funding measures.
Meanwhile it seems that another indigent defense organization involved with representing Operation Lone Star cases, “Rio Grande Legal Aid,” is not a party to this— receiving no mention in the article. “Rio Grande Legal Aid” has offices all over the State, including Laredo and San Antonio, as well as Del Rio and Eagle Pass.
It’s not clear to us why Mr. Montoya’s piece hasn’t gotten the traction in state newspapers that we personally might feel it deserves. Indeed, it seems to us like a bit of a bravura performance. It may be that efforts to link this mess to the ongoing criticisms related to Governor Abbott and the Texas Military Department’s involvement in Operation Lone Star has confused readers and the current crop of daily reporters out there, accustomed to simple narratives consisting of clear, tribalistic “good guys,” and “bad guys.” We’ve largely excised those elements of his writing in presenting it to our subscribers. It’s also entirely possible that they are simply scrambling to confirm the details for themselves.
Don’t let that stop you from going back and reading Mr. Montoya’s full and unabridged piece. We link it again, here. There are real questions about the Governor’s appointees and their actions in this matter.
One other possible motive exists for why someone might be pressured to drag this whole process out. Greed. More billable hours. More time at the public trough. Is that the case here? Who knows? We don’t. It’s probably more likely that prolonged income in the form of captive tax dollars is simply a fringe benefit.
We don’t really have any clear way of finding out from here. But, it seems to us, that given all that Mr. Montoya has discovered, the onus is on the State to restore the public’s belief in the integrity of this process. That may mean a wholesale revision of who is conducting defense. It may mean bringing the hammer down. It may also just mean some quiet adjustments. We’ll see what happens.
That’ll do it for now. Once again, in the spirit of full disclosure, we point out our day job with the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office, and the possible conflict of interest we bear in regards to this story. As always, any opinions or errors or other sins committed in this act of coverage are ours alone— produced independently without any oversight by the county.
On a personal note— it’s a bit funny. When we began working for the County, we imagined we might be privy to all kinds of secret doings and hush hush matters.
Nope.
We are discovering these things, like County Attorney Smith’s email from Ms. Delgado, for the first time right alongside the general public.
Stay tuned, we’ll try and keep up with all of this as best we can for you. Enjoy the warmer weather expected today and this weekend, and make the most of it.
It's my understanding that this man has a nephew, with the same last name, who heads one of the investigative agencies for the DPS. CIDS
Edited post publication, to correct the spelling of Wischkaemper's first name. Philip with 1 L, not 2.