Ronnie Earle’s $8 Million

PoliticallyCharged.org
September 24, 2008

Print Version

Some believe that Travis County (TX) District Attorney Ronnie Earle is about to become very rich. Could Earle who took down former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay with a questionable legal indictment be reaping the financial rewards of seeds sown long ago?  We may soon know the answer.

As head of Texas’ statewide Public Integrity Unit, Earle, just this week submitted a bizarre request to the state’s Third Court of Appeals, asking that the judicial panel re-hear an interlocutory appeal from two DeLay associates rather than challenge the final decision itself in a higher appellate court. What makes this move so unusual is that the court’s ruling agreed with Earle's argument -- but he didn't like the judges' reasoning.

Earle won the ruling from the Third Court because it denied the defendants’ Habeas Corpus relief, meaning they may now stand trial unless the decision is appealed, or, unless the trial judge dismisses it. Earle simply didn’t like the way the Third Court substantiated the fact that transactions involving checks were not included in the 2002 money laundering statute at the time of the alleged criminal acts. The state legislature added the check language to the statute in 2005, but the Third Court unequivocally stated that since checks were not specifically identified in the statute in 2002 then the 2005 statute cannot be retroactively applied -- known as ex post facto. Tom DeLay's lawyers say this ruling lays the legal groundwork for complete dismissal. The first count against DeLay has aleady been dismissed using the ex post facto argument.

So what is Earle’s motive? Is his unorthodox request to the Third Court (which Earle says is corrupt) simply ludicrous, or is there another reason ... a lucrative payoff perhaps?

Before Tom DeLay was indicted in 2005 for conspiracy to violate the election code (since dismissed on a similar ex post facto ruling) and money laundering -- three of his associates and eight corporations, including Sears and Cracker Barrel -- were officially accused of related legal violations a full year earlier. Soon after the indictments were handed down, after multiple grand juries Earle solicited during the two-year investigatory period, Earle went to each corporation and suggested that they "donate" $1 million each to an entity of his choice in return for him dropping the charges. (See Dollars for Dismissals). Earle claims at least four of the companies agreed to the unusual terms and their cases were dismissed in exchange for the cash.

Because the final agreement never disclosed the amount of the payments nor to whom they went, it is apparent that only Earle himself - and each individual company - knows what happened to the $8 million, or $4 million, or whatever secret amount actually changed hands. None of the corporations - neither the ones which paid, nor the ones claiming they did not – has ever gone through pre-trial hearings, motions, or trial. Could it be that a sizable amount of the corporate money went to organizations or to bank accounts that Earle himself will control once he retires in January, or at least benefit him in some way? 

In an Austin American Statesman story from February 22nd, a former Earle assistant District Attorney revealed where at least some of the money went:

…Earle, when pressed on the matter, said that some of the money is in a trust fund created by a defense lawyer and another amount went to the LBJ School at the University of Texas, which was to produce a still undefined program. UT Assistant Dean Jeff Patterson said school officials are in internal discussions on how to use the funds, and it remains in an investment account.

Patterson further stated that Earle never told them how to spend the money, so they have the money on hold.

Could the "internal discussions" be about Earle running a program at the LBJ School once he retires, which would be funded by this money?  Why does the money remain unspent after four years with no “educational” program in place as claimed at the time of the payments and as stated in the dismissal agreement. Without public disclosure, the deliberations remain secret, so we may never know. Earle says that only “some” of the money is in a trust fund and at the school. Where's the remainder? Is it being held for him somewhere else, too? Since Earle demands transparency in all political transactions, shouldn't that same standard apply to him?

Another benefit Earle gains by making so much political noise about this case is the ability to score further fees by giving speeches when his retirement begins, predominately at George Soros-funded events that sing his praises for taking down "The Hammer", a nickname commonly used to describe DeLay. Soros, once known as Georgy Schwartz, is the billionaire hedge fund manager who almost brought the United Kingdom to its knees during the early 90s for instituting a shorting run on the British pound, and for spending $27 million of his own money to defeat President Bush in 2004. An Autisn based organization, Texans for Public Justice (TPJ), for example, was the group initially filing the complaint to Earle about DeLay, (which then led to the indictments), is heavily supported by Soros’ Open Society Institute and other Soros-funded front groups.

The organization to which Earle reportedly suggested that the corporate “dollars for dismissals” be sent was the Center for Deliberative Democracy (CDD) at Stanford University in California. CDD was founded by professor James S. Fishkin, a former UT-Austin professor. On Fishkin’s staff at CDD is Robert Luskin who still teaches at the UT-Austin’s main campus. Fishkin and Luskin are significantly funded by Soros to conduct "deliberative polls" -- a copyrighted research process that Fiskin developed -- in venues all over the world. The deliberation program pays people to discuss issues in order to then be “polled” at the end of a 3-5 day period. Since the corporations reportedly refused Earle's Stanford “contribution” request, insisting instead that their "contribution" remain in Texas, did Luskin gain control of that money at UT-Austin for the purposes of housing it for Earle?  Will Earle be able to join Fishkin and Luskin in the Soros cash cow once he retires -- as payment for taking down DeLay?  

The Everglades Legal Foundation, a national organization that, among other things, examines the ethics of prosecutors and law enforcement personnel, believes selling dismissals to criminal charges could be its own form of corruption. "Ronnie Earle's actions appear to be more egregious than those of Mike Nifong in North Carolina and US Attorney Christopher Christie in New Jersey. We think his practices merit investigation. Our organization has made an open records request for documentation surrounding the corporate pay-offs, but the Travis County District Attorney's office refuses to respond even though the law requires action within 10 days of an official request. We find this curious, too," stated Heyward Smith, the group's executive director.

Nifong is the disgraced Durham County (NC) District Attorney who suppressed evidence against four Duke University students accused of rape in order to boost his re-election chances. Christie used his position as New Jersey's US Attorney to force the Bristol Myers Corporation into funding a program at his alma mater, Seton Hall University, in exchange for a dismissal of various charges that he had brought against them. The Justice Department, reacting to the appearance of an inappropriate request for donation by Christie to Bristol Myers, now forbids all US Attorneys from engaging in these "dollars for dismissals" practices.

Another interesting Soros connection is that Earle’s own wife, Twyla Hugely Earle, co-wrote a portion of a book ( Restorative Justice and Family Violence) with Florida Atlantic University professor Gordon Bazemore, who is also funded by Soros to conduct research. Will more of these book deals come down for the Earle family after January?  Because the Soros organizations do not disclose their funding sources, the public may never know.

The Soros tentacles stretch even deeper. Texas District Court judge Bob Perkins is the man who gave Earle and the corporations the state’s official approval for the Dollars for Dismissals signoff. Not surprisingly, it was he who was originally chosen to preside over the DeLay cases. Perkins was later forcibly recused from doing so because of excessive bias involving his political contributions to the far-left, DeLay-hating group, MoveOn.org (another Soros-funded political organization that produced commercials showing DeLay superimposed in a jailbird suit).

Accusations have been made for years that Earle is a partisan prosecutor who targets his political enemies while letting his allies and friends operate without scrutiny. His supporters say he is David fighting the Goliath of political corruption. His opponents also now believe he is part of the very corruption he claims to fight. Determining part of the Travis County DA’s motivation could be best revealed in his own words from a speech he recently delivered to the national Netroots Nation conference in July. Earle told the assembled group of left-wing bloggers that “the law does not define justice” and so he creates his own definition. The crowd giggled with approval because they understood him to mean that politics – not the law -- should define justice.

Without question an officer of the court such as Ronnie Earle should follow the letter of the law to see that true justice is done. His series of secretive financial deals involving the DeLay case and others has gone on long enough. It is time that the appropriate Texas authorities stop looking the other way and conduct a thorough investigation of these practices – before, and not after, Earle rides off into the Austin sunset.