Transparency News, 7/13/21

A Freedom of Information Act case that Councilwoman Johana Hicks brought against several town officials has been dismissed in Montgomery County General District Court. The case, dismissed late last week, was over a claim from Hicks that the town had not provided the councilwoman the necessary evidence to use in her defense against a measure to reprimand her last month. Hicks submitted a FOIA request by email six days before the reprimand vote, asking what evidence members of town council “and/or its investigative” had considered in connection with the upcoming reprimand, according to court documents. “Hicks asked for these documents in order to defend herself against the bald and unfounded charges in the resolution of reprimand,” a general district court petition reads. “Had the town council properly produced documents responsive to the [June 2] request within five days of receipt in accordance with [Virginia law], Hicks would have been prepared to defend herself in the June 8, 2021 public hearing.”
The Roanoke Times

A former Pound town employee could avoid prison time after pleading guilty to seven counts of embezzling public funds. Tamari R. Hayes, 61, was granted deferred disposition on Monday by Circuit Court Judge John Kilgore under a new state sentencing law for first-time offenders. Each of the seven felony counts carry a maximum 20-year prison term, but Kilgore accepted an agreement between defense lawyer Richard Kennedy and special prosecutor Dan Fellhauer. Hayes was indicted in April in the wake of a nine-month Virginia State Police investigation of the town’s finances. The charges cover a three-year period during which she was a cashier in Pound Town Hall and took $1,177. Fellhauer, who is the interim Scott County Commonwealth’s Attorney, is also the special prosecutor in a petition filed in December for the removal of Pound Mayor Stacey Carson. The case was originally set for an April 9 trial, but Fellhauer said that has been delayed because attorneys are still going through the evidence discovery process. Hayes was one of 44 signers to the petition, which was not connected to her embezzlement charges.
Times News

 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will no longer block ​users from his personal account for expressing “First Amendment-protected viewpoints” as part of an agreement to end a lawsuit where plaintiffs say they were unconstitutionally blocked for criticizing him or his policies on the platform, according to a filing late Friday in a federal court in Austin. Paxton had already unblocked the named plaintiffs of the lawsuit in May, a month after the lawsuit was filed, but the latest filing confirmed he has now unblocked any other accounts. The ACLU of Texas, a freedom of speech organization that represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit along with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University called the agreement “an important victory for Texans’ First Amendment rights.”
KPRC

For six years, Dennis Buckovetz worked alone, from the back bedroom of his house, uncovering the details of possible wrongdoing at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.  Buckovetz, who served in the Vietnam War as a Marine, was working as administrative director of Marine Corps Community Services at the Recruit Depot when, in 2014, he was carbon-copied on an email indicating a commanding officer was directly involved in selling Marine Corps memorabilia to fund a program of his own interest.  The December 2014 email caught Buckovetz’s attention. If the commanding officer and his reports were selling memorabilia, those sales were undermining Community Services, which for years had been authorized to sell memorabilia to fund its morale and welfare programs.  So in January 2015, Buckovetz submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking the emails of several people who would know of the commanding officer’s memorabilia sales.  
NFOIC