Don Hill, giving the finger to his attorney's motions to dismiss
Last night, Jack Fink mentioned the two motions to dismiss former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill's attorney, Ray Jackson, filed on behalf of his client on July 25. Hill, of course, has been indicted on federal corruption charges tied to low-income housing development -- charges to which two co-defendants have already pleaded guilty. But Fink didn't deliver the goods: the legal docs themselves. So here's the first one, which claims the U.S. Attorney went after Hill because he's African-American and a Democrat. As in:
If the stories written about the Justice Department over the past year have shown anything, they have shown that federal prosecutors often targeted people because of political and other inappropriate reasons. Given that the so-called illegal conduct -- promoting business interests of contractors and consultants among public officials who are allowed to have business careers -- is engaged in by lots of people, including white public officials on the Dallas City Council, but only the black public officials have been charged, there is reason to question how that selection was made.For some reason, the motion to dismiss also mentions that Brian Potashnik, also indicted, is "a Jewish developer." Maybe because it also notes that the U.S. Attorney never investigated former mayor Laura Miller, to whose campaign Potashnik and wife Cheryl contributed at least $35,000. And, ya know, Miller's also Jewish. Alas, here's the second motion to dismiss, which claims the feds didn't properly screen the grand jury for racial bias in the wake of copious media reports during the two years between the feds' announcing the investigation and the indictments. The U.S. Attorney has not yet filed its response. --Robert Wilonsky
