The Courthouse Of Doom
We have asked a Texas Appeals Court to step in and stop the illegal shroud of secrecy in a Waller County courthouse. It involves a divorce case we’ve been trying to tell you about, a fight over six hundred million dollars involving the founder of NewQuest Properties and his wife. A legal war. Our lawyers say the Judge’s conduct doesn’t pass the smell test. We’ve been fighting for months to get answers. That’s why I now call the place the Courthouse of Doom.
The Courthouse of Doom
“We are going to die” Temple of Doom.
Indiana Jones had to risk death to unravel the secrets of the Temple of Doom.
But he was on a mission.
“We came from a small village” Temple of Doom.
Dr. Jones would face evil head on.
He would finally get his hands on these secret rocks. Free the children from the scary temple.
“Fortune and glory” Temple of Doom.
“Okay I know what we do here at Dolcefino Media may not seem quite as cool, we fight wrongdoing of a different kind. And besides who would want to throw me into a bunch of boiling lava,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
We are trying to expose the injustice we are seeing in this place; the illegal secrecy.
This is the Waller County Courthouse, what we call the Courthouse of Doom.
“Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea coming here after all” Temple of Doom.
We don’t think they are hiding the Sankara stones here in Waller County.
And they aren’t trying to send us to a fiery death.
Even though I suspect some folks around here wouldn’t really mind if I was kidnapped by some evil witch doctor.
But we are clearly not welcome here.
“Wait a minute. We can’t shoot through the window here?” Andrea Palacio said.
“This is not my idea of a swell time” Temple of Doom.
We are trying to investigate another case of family injustice and judicial misconduct. In what is likely the most expensive divorce case going on in all of Texas… six hundred million dollars at stake.
“Mr Sears, can we ask you a question about your case?” Palacio asked.
On one side is the co-founder of NewQuest Properties, Jay Sears. NewQuest is the biggest commercial developer in all of Waller County.
“Are you hiding something?” Palacio asked.
A company with deep political ties, hundreds of millions of dollars in Waller County real estate deals.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Sears’ partner to local and state politicians.
And then on the other side, there is Sears’ wife of 43 years.
There are claims of adultery, complaints Sears’ paramour took hundreds of thousands of dollars that is rightfully owed to his ex-wife instead.
Complaints of fraud, that some of Sears’ true fortune is being hidden in nearly a hundred real estate companies.
“I watched you in court Today and you still don’t remember a lot of your orders,” Dolcefino said to Judge Kern.
You’ve already seen the elderly judge assigned to unravel this highly complicated legal fight.
“I mean that court was like chaos today,” Dolcefino said to Judge Kern.
This judge has hearing problems. Forgets his own court rulings. Gets mad a lot.
“It’s just crazier and crazier. I don’t think he remembers what he ordered. I don’t know what’s going on” Debbie McLeod said.
We have seen it with our own eyes, more than once
“Why don’t you remember the orders you signed?” Dolcefino asked Judge Kern.
“No fun. Play with you, no fun,” Temple of Doom.
Judge Kern seems to think his rulings are more important than the Texas constitution
“He is crazy” Temple of Doom.
For two years he denied Debra McLeod even the constitutional right to a jury trial, to punish Sears for alleged adultery.
In fact, two years ago when she showed up for a hearing, the judge without any prior notice simply dissolved the marriage, leaving the fight over the community property for later.
Removing the one thing Jay Sears and his band of lawyers seem to be most worried about… money.
“Why did you want to have your divorce in Waller County when you live in Harris County?” Dolcefino asked Sears.
Sears moved to Waller County for just a few months, just long enough, it seems, to convince another judge he really had the right to sue for divorce in Waller County, even though he lives in Harris County.
Wonder why the venue made such a big difference?
“Is that because of the relationship your company has to the county officials?” Dolcefino asked Sears.
The two co-founders of NewQuest both have huge divorce cases going on in Waller County.
And yep, Judge Kern is going to decide them both.
The original judge recused herself after Sears and McLeod agreed to voluntarily seal their divorce case files early on in the fight.
“I betcha Debra McLeod wishes she hadn’t done that now. Sha has lost every single fight we have watched in that court, even the ones that the judge remembers,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Multiple women who’ve been in Kern’s court claim he’s biased against women.
And those weren’t cases that were as politically charged as this one is.
“But we don’t believe either Sears or McLeod had the right to seal every single thing in their divorce case in the first place,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Nearly three months ago, the Waller County District Attorney’s office admitted to us the existence of the case should not be a secret on the Waller County courts website.
But guess what?
It still is.
“You were caught” Temple of Doom.
In April we filed a motion to intervene in the divorce case as part of an ongoing investigation into NewQuest and their political power in Texas.
If you look online, in public records, you still can’t see it.
We held a hearing, in open court, Judge Kern made another bizarre ruling.
“Well, it seems Judge Kern has decided that he does not have jurisdiction to hear a motion to unseal records in the case he presides over,” Nick Kacal said.
A month later we were summoned back to court because Jay Sears’s lawyers wanted the judge to enter an order denying our intervention.
The judge repeated his bizarre claim, that his appointment did not include the right to unseal the case records.
“Why can’t the public see what’s going on, Your Honor? Women are complaining you’re not fair to them. Do you think that’s the case here? Do you think you’re fair?” Dolcefino asked Judge Kern.
“I guess I pissed him off. We found out later the judge signed an order denying our intervention. The court didn’t even send our lawyers a copy of it,” Dolcefino told the camera.
That’s why we’ve now gone to the Texas Court of Appeals seeking an emergency hearing to force the Waller County district clerk to let the sunshine in.
“Hi! I’m with Dolcefino Media. I just have a couple of questions,” Palacio said to Liz Pirkle.
The district clerk ignored our visits and calls, so we caught up with her going to the courthouse one day, since she won’t do the job she was elected to do either.
“Can you talk to me about why Jay Sears is so special? Can you tell us why you are hiding records from us? Did someone tell you to hide records from us?” Palacio asked to Liz Pirkle.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before? Nobody’s seen this for 100 years.” Temple of Doom.
Right after the Fourth of July we attended a rare public hearing in the Sears-McLeod case held in open court.
A limited jury trial is now set for July 28.
This was a fight over how much the jury would be told about Jay Sears’ paramour’s spending habits, his girlfriend. When we went back days later to look at the orders Kern signed in that hearing,
They still do not exist for public view, the entire case is still a secret.
But the administrative judge over that part of Texas—the one who appointed Judge Kern in the first place—doesn’t seem to care enough to remove him.
“I think he should be replaced,” said Dolcefino.
“Well, everybody is entitled to their opinion on that, and I appreciate yours. I’m not going to replace him right now, no sir,” said Judge Robert Trapp.
“You’ve got to love the standards for judges in Texas,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Robert Kern retired years ago. In Texas, you can’t be elected after the age of 75 to the bench. And there is a reason for that.
Yet seven years after he retired, Kern is still allowed to dispense justice.
Maybe it’s time to stop that.
“I know it’s past July Fourth, but I can’t wait for all the fireworks in Waller County when that jury gets in the box,” Dolcefino told the camera.
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