The same old playbook
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Sylvester Turner is counting on intimidation to scare the media off so they won’t remind Houstonians why they have rejected his candidacy for Mayor twice.
Houstonians shouldn’t fall for it.
Friday, a Fox 26 reporter questioned the hundreds of thousands of dollars Rep. Turner’s law firm Barnes & Turner, was paid by charter schools accused of fraud, safety violations and abuse. Records show Turner represented these schools before the Texas Education Agency, a state agency whose budget he helped control. It’s all public records and totally fair to question the ethics of a politician who appears to get paid because of his influence. Turner’s firms have made millions from government contracts or from people who depend on taxpayer money. That is just a fact.
Turner’s response to the media: It is the desperate act of a ‘disgraced former reporter.’
So apparently, it’s all my fault.
This week Channel 13 questioned the $144,000 Turner’s title company, American Title, made on a real estate deal made possible by the 2012 bond election. Turner opposed the bond election in 2012 but then suddenly changed his mind and convinced his community to support the bond.
This weekend the group Women for Turner struck back 13’s story, suggesting it may be “another attempt by Mr. Dolcefino to use KTRK to try to smear Rep. Turner on the eve of the election.” Since “Women for Turner” raised the 1991 story on Turner and his roommate let me oblige.
This week is the anniversary of the end of the libel trial for the 1991 story that Sly Turner blames for his defeat the first time he ran.
This past week Texas Monthly labeled the stories as a “smear campaign, a discomfiting set of stories about a nearly incomprehensible insurance scam that was laced with homophobic innuendo.”
What about the truth?
In the heat of the runoff, the married Sylvester Turner was actually sharing a home with a guy, and his wife had signed a sworn affidavit, raising questions about his fitness for office.
If the Women for Turner want to blame me for Sylvester Turner losing the election that’s fine. I would do that story again in a heartbeat. But perhaps the Women for Turner should read what the Texas Court of Appeals wrote in 1998 about their candidate:
“As the runoff election approached Turner began to attract greater scrutiny by the press. Articles in the Houston Newspapers reported a suit against Turner for insurance fraud… Newspapers also reported that Turner had failed to repay student loans to Harvard Law School and the University of Houston, and that Harvard had obtained a default legal judgement against him. Turner also had a history of many other delinquent bills, including the failure to pay State Bar dues… The Houston Post reported a bad check charge… and stated a warrant had been issued for Turner’s arrest at the time.”
I am sure my report about the faked death of a guy named Sylvester Foster didn’t help the Turner campaign. Turner was his lawyer and did legal work to collect insurance money after Foster supposedly drowned in Galveston Bay. Days before the 1991 runoff I got tipped Sylvester Foster was really alive. That probably wouldn’t have gotten on TV.
But when I went to the Turner campaign house I discovered he wasn’t living with his wife, but with a guy named Dwight Thomas. Thomas was the business partner of the guy who faked his death.
Mr. Thomas made quite an impression on Houston viewers. By the time the U.S. Attorney declined to indict anyone in the case, death had claimed key witnesses, including Keith Anderson. He was one of the guys on the boat when Foster did his fake death deal. He swore in a deposition that Turner was a participant in the conspiracy, not just the lawyer. Keith Anderson had nothing to gain. He was dying of AIDS and said he simply wanted to clear his conscience.
None of that mattered. On October 14, 1996 a jury decided they didn’t think the story was true, and from all accounts they didn’t like me either. I yelled a lot on the stand, in part because my mom had died of cancer a few days before I testified. Quite frankly, I resented having to waste my time in court and I still remember my frail bald headed mom shooting the bird at Turner on TV because she knew I was just doing my job.
If more reporters were doing their job today, Houston voters would be better off, and make a wiser choice in November. Don’t let Sly or any other public official intimidate you.
By the way, Sylvester Foster was in prison when I did my story and when I went to trial. Never talked to him in my life, until a few weeks ago.
Don’t be intimidated.
Being right is always worth the fight.
Crosby Letter re Foster Turner and Thomas
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