Oh, My Papa

Oh, my papa:It was strange the first time we heard it; now we're kind of getting used to it. In January, Dallas County Constable Mike Dupree told us that he ended a sexual relationship with teenager Angel Martinez because they both preferred more of a father-son relationship. Now, Leo Armendariz, a deputy constable of Dupree's, has signed an affidavit claiming that Dupree sexually harassed him ever since he began working at the office six years ago, also under the guise that Dupree was just being paternal. Armendariz claims Dupree invited him to go on cruises and fishing trips while asking for hugs. Dupree also explained how he regarded the 29-year-old deputy.

"When I was in the car, he asked me if he could hold my hand," Armendariz states in his affidavit. "He told me that he didn't have any children but that he looked at me like a son."

On Monday, three of Dupree's employees filed a petition to remove the Dallas County constable from office, claiming incompetence and official misconduct. One of those is Rafael Hernandez, a 19-year-old clerk—noticing a pattern here?—who claimed that Dupree touched and held him inappropriately.

"Always at each occasion, he would extend out his hand thanking me, in order that I would have to shake his hand, and when I did, he wouldn't want to let go, stating he didn't have any children and that my father was lucky, and then said he wished he had a son like me."

Another deputy who filed the petition against Dupree, Aaron McCarty, is openly gay. Initially, he defended the constable to the Dallas Voice but later retracted his support, claiming that it came at the insistence of Dupree. In his affidavit, McCarty says that when he introduced his partner, a—you guessed it—"26-year-old successful Hispanic man," Dupree said in Spanish, "How big is your dick?"

Interestingly, that's the first thing Buzz said when we met Jim Schutze.

The employee's removal petition, which seeks to suspend Dupree from office immediately, was prepared by attorney Dan Wyde, a former criminal judge. It also claims Dupree's "gross carelessness in the discharge of his official duties," citing a series of judgments issued against him after a court found that he failed to serve court papers on an alleged debtor. The petition comes in the wake of a string of stories by the Dallas Observer on how Dupree arranged to have Angel Martinez deported to Honduras after the young man took up with a stripper. Hell hath no fury like a father scorned.