Both the candidates in a local judge’s race are calling out the county’s antiquated and dysfunctional system for tracking criminal cases in justice of the peace courts, which in many cases leaves people who have paid fines subject to arrest because of outdated records. “As a new JP, I noticed…
Nothing about Jerry Harris’ fall from Netflix superstardom to pleading guilty to sexually abusing minors on Thursday came as a surprise to attorney Michelle Tuegel. The Dallas-based attorney represented several athletes from the U.S. national gymnastics team in legal actions against the United States Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics and Michigan…
The scheme was simple enough. The labs would pay Dr. Eduardo Canova, Dr. Jose Maldonado and nurse practitioner Keith Wichinski. Then the medical professionals would order an unneeded laboratory test from one of the labs. Later, they’d bill the cost of the test to Medicare and other federal healthcare programs…
Before he landed in a North Texas jail last month on seditious conspiracy charges for allegedly trying to overthrow the U.S. government, then Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes pushed a dark and apocalyptic vision of what lay in store for the U.S. According to Rhodes, it’s only a matter of…
A series of bogus emails gave it away: Jennifer Faith, authorities say, baited her boyfriend into murdering her husband.
Danielle Thomas already had so much on her mind that the winter storm barreling toward North Texas barely registered. Her grandmother had died nearly a month earlier, and on the same day, she lost her job as an instructor at a Dallas kickboxing studio. She was busy grappling with the…
U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert is challenging Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primaries on March 1, but even if he unseats Paxton, Gohmert might carry on Paxton’s legacy of involvement in high-profile criminal investigations. On Tuesday, White House counsel Dana Remus sent a letter to the National Archives, where…
Last week’s meeting got off to a smooth enough start. Kayla Kates-Brown from Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission, or HHS, read off a few changes to the meeting itinerary. She collected votes from attending members to proceed. The plodding tedium you’d expect from a virtual state government subcommittee meeting seemed…
Shannon Daves, a transgender woman, was homeless when Dallas police officers arrested her for an alleged misdemeanor in January 2018. (It’s not clear from court documents what she’d been charged with.) Four years later, her case could have dire consequences for those fighting for bail reform in Texas and around…
One of the alleged masterminds of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol will stay locked up until trial, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Elmer Stewart Rhodes, who goes by Stewart Rhodes, founded the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia. He was arrested earlier this month on the rarely…
When dozens of white nationalists decked out in matching garb marched in lockstep from the Lincoln Memorial toward the U.S. Capitol in December, Joe Rogan was sure they were federal agents in disguise. “They just pop up outta nowhere with the same sized flags, the same outfits, goose-stepping … in…
It’s barely been a week since Netflix released the second season of the popular docuseries Cheer, and already another cheerleading coach connected to the show is facing new sexual abuse allegations. In a lawsuit filed in Travis County earlier today, Carrie Methvin, a former family friend of cheerleading coach Jason…
This isn’t the first time Carlos Quintanilla has run for Congress. In fact, he’s tried to beat out fellow Democrat and U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey three times in primary races since 2016, falling short each time. In 2016, he got a little more than a third of the vote, but…
When Chas Moore took the podium at AT&T’s downtown Dallas plaza, he urged the protesters not to buy into what he called the “bastardized” version of MLK’s message that has become prevalent. On Monday, MLK Day, he told the crowd that corporations had coopted MLK’s legacy, erasing much of the…
A row of defendants sat handcuffed with their backs to the public benches. The courtroom 108 in Plano was jammed. U.S. District Judge Kimberly Johnson had a slate of cases on her docket, but the buzz in the room focused mostly on one defendant. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of a right-wing…
For the activists who wrote it, the weed decriminalization ordinance that faced a vote before Denton’s City Council Tuesday afternoon was a concession. “I really feel like what we’re asking for right now is still a watered down version of what needs to be done,” said Tristan Seikel, organizer and…
University administrators at a network of elite colleges across the U.S. have worked together to form a “cartel” that, as a group, drove up the cost of admissions and excluded financial aid students since at least 2003, a new lawsuit alleges. Among the schools accused of participating in the alleged…
It wasn’t the first time Nathaniel Edward Gonzalez had sold heroin to someone who eventually overdosed. Gonzalez, 36, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for drug trafficking last Thursday. But 16 years ago, he was convicted on almost the exact same charges. Back in 2005, Brenden Thayer, a…
Dallas has been wrestling with the best way to deal with panhandling, but the solutions just keep falling short. Now, the city is holding court on the street, literally. In 2018, Dallas police said they would stop enforcing a city ordinance banning people from asking for money on the streets…
A wave of funding for police in North Texas schools is on the way. Late last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was distributing about $126 million to add policing and public safety measures in schools. About $1.8 million of that funding is coming to six different…
Among a number of new laws taking effect on Jan. 1 is a law handing control of local law enforcement budgets over to county residents in Texas. Authored by state Sen. Joan Huffman the new law requires any reduction to the budgets of local law enforcement agencies (meaning county sheriff’s…
As the omicron variant sweeps across Texas, Dallas County has been hammered with new cases. In just the past 14 days, the rate of positive cases has gone up over 350%. The county averaged more than 1,000 new positive cases per day over the past seven days alone. Dallas’ case…
