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Jesse Diaz
Gehrig Saldaña
David Tuthill
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02/18/8 Will Lynn Flint
Shaw unravel the ODB's web of power?
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Since I am not a paid
journalist and DallasArena.com has always just been a newsletter to my
friends and people who dream of honest government, I often pass along
important stories to reporters I respect who have wider circulations.
The only way to make politicians and government critters behave is to
keep the light on them. At least, you would think exposure would
discourage misbehavior. Not in our town. |
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It's beyond embarrassing.
It's downright puzzling.
How do seemingly smart people who have been
raised to positions of influence and power suddenly go nuts? That's the
easiest explanation for the current chaos among Our Downtown Betters (the ODB).
Their world of shadows does not look good in the glare of publicity. |
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Jesse Diaz
(2/19/8)
This case should have been referred to another jurisdiction. If
this is 'Smart on Crime' the real name for this case should be 'Double
Standard'.
Dallas County taxpayers don't pay taxes
so crime committed in our county can be prosecuted in a selected
double-standard manner. Obviously,there must be some attorneys
in the Dallas County District Attorney's
office who know this case is being handled in a horrible manner.
Did someone on the inside decide to leak information on the
so-called memo agreement that may eventually allow Ms. Shaw to be
prosecuted selectively?
Jesse Diaz, President - Dallas
LULAC Council 4496
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The Lynn Flint Shaw fiasco will not go away. Try as you might to ignore
this train wreck, you cannot. Hardly a day passes without a new
revelation. Last week, Jim Schutze exposed in
Lynn Flynt Shaw, At Your ArtServe-ice
(UnFairPark, DallasObserver.com, 2/14/7) that this is
not the first time for Lynn to have a credibility problem:
...
Here?s the particular
item that seems most
striking now: In a lawsuit
against ArtServe by a major
creditor, ArtServe produced
a letter in which it seemed
to have warned the creditor
of its problems before the
creditor had extended a
generous loan.
A little bit
counterintuitive, eh?
Just before the loan
comes in, ArtServe sends
a letter to the lender
saying,
We thought you should
know, the city has
yanked all our funding,
and we?re totally
screwed and probably
won?t be able to pay you
back.
Then they
get the loan anyway. And
then they don?t pay it
back.
Oh, but there was a
problem: Unfair Park has
learned that the letter
was fake. How do we
know? Whoever the genius
was who ginned up the
fake letter, he or she
didn?t realize that the
computer on which the
letter was written would
update the date at the
top of the letter to the
day the letter was
actually written and
printed.
...
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The ArtServe disaster was 10
years ago and involved $100,000. And, no one did anything? And, Lynn
continued to be named to boards of arts groups, even the Meyerson's Board?
In one way, it's not surprising that the artsy fartsy crowd would overlook
someone misappropriating $100K that was intended for others. That's their
complete modus operandi - fund their entertainment on the backs of
taxpayers, who are not expected to darken the halls of the elite's private
facilities that are paid for by the public.
Still, I'm shocked. No one in the arts community is saying anything pro or
con about Lynn's fall from grace. The old "I turn my face from you" shun?
She thought those people were her friends. They thought she was honorable.
Two wrongs don't ever make a right!
Mayor Leppert hasn't said anything about Lynn Flint Shaw's criminal charges.
Mayor Leppert hasn't apologized to DART for forcing out Joyce Foreman and
imposing Lynn on their board or his high handed lobbying to get Lynn named
Chair. He must be privately mortified to have the former Treasurer of his
Friends of Tom Leppert booked into jail. Dave Levinthall had a little
jewel in
Dallas
Mayor Tom Leppert taps businessman to replace Shaw on fundraising committee
(DallasNews.com,
2/16/8):
Dallas
Mayor Tom
Leppert
named
businessman
Ron
Steinhart
interim
treasurer of
his Friends
of Tom
Leppert
fundraising
committee
Friday, said
Chris
Heinbaugh,
the mayor's
chief of
staff.
Mr.
Steinhart
replaces
Lynn Flint
Shaw, who
surrendered
to Dallas
County
custody
Thursday
after being
charged with
forging the
signature
and
letterhead
of Dallas
County
District
Attorney
Craig
Watkins.
Ms. Shaw
had also
served as
chairwoman
of the
Dallas Area
Rapid
Transit
board, a
position
from which
she resigned
late last
month.
Mr.
Steinhart's
appointment
comes a day
after Mr.
Heinbaugh
said Dallas
businessman
Albert Black
would become
interim
treasurer of
Friends of
Tom Leppert.
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It would be funny if it didn't
reflect so badly on the city. I'm told Albert Black already serves as
Treasurer of some other Leppert support group. Too much for me to keep
with, but apparently it's also too much to keep up with for the Mayor's people.
This is serious disorganization, and don't blame it on Carol Reed. There's
no way she has the Mayor's ear with all these screw ups. You can say what
you will about Carol (and I have), but she knows more than 2 Black people in
this town. She managed to keep the lid on most of Ron Kirk's screw ups.
Let's see, Lynn Flint Shaw has shamed the DART Board. Lynn has made Mayor
Leppert look like a fumble bumbler. Now, there's a question about our Bail
Bondsman DA Craig Watkins deliberately filing the wrong charges for her forgery
crime. As usual, the genius Allen Gwinn picks up on something no one else
even thought to look at in
D.A.
Games? The Lynn Flint Shaw Arrest Files:
| Former DART Board Chair Lynn Flint Shaw
was arrested earlier this week for
allegedly forging a letter from Dallas County
District Attorney Craig Watkins
to keep from paying a debt.
The Texas Penal Code says about
forgery that a "person
commits an offense if he forges a writing with intent to defraud or harm
another."
It goes on to say that to do
so "is
a felony of the third degree if the writing is or purports to be [...]
part of an issue of money."
So our question is: why
wasn't
Lynn Flint Shaw charged
with felony forgery?
Better yet, according to
records obtained by Dallas.Org (links, below, in the story), why wasn't
Shaw charged with a felony at all?
The saga began in early
December when,
according to an affidavit made by Dallas County DA's Investigator
Barry Dyson, Shaw mailed an empty envelope to friend Tifany Cheatham, to
get Cheatham to believe that Shaw's $3,500 check to her had been stolen
in the mail.
On New Years Eve Shaw,
according to Dyson, faxed a letter purporting to be from Watkins to
Cheatham claiming that the matter was under investigation by the D.A.'s
office.
According to Dyson when he
examined the letter from Shaw he "recognized
the signature on the document in question to be a forgery."
Instead of being charged with
forgery, however,
Shaw was arrested and booked on a much lesser misdemeanor
charge of
tampering with a governmental record.
Ironically, the Texas Penal
Code says that tampering with a governmental record is "a
felony of the second degree [...] if the actor's intent in committing
the offense was to defraud or harm another."
One of Dallas.Org's attorneys
questioned whether the letter from Watkins might not be able to be
construed to be a "governmental record."
So will Shaw's lawyer simply
have the charge thrown out--such that Watkins will have to re-file
another charge against an old friend?
Better yet, will Shaw get off
scott-free at some point down the road?
Only time will tell.
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Is Allen Gwinn right again?
Did our Bail Bondsman DA deliberately misfile this case, so he can drop the
whole mess without any jail time for Lynn? Or, maybe he's just not a good
lawyer?
He scooped the DMN again, and they did not give him credit again. But, at
least they are on the right page now. They concur with Allen Gwinn that
something smells with the DA's handling of this case. The Dallas Managed
News is finally saying something:
Is This 'Smart on Crime'? Silence on Shaw case only leads
to questions (DallasNews.com,
Editorial, 2/18/8):
... Ms. Shaw was charged with tampering with a government document, a Class A misdemeanor. Yet Texas law says that if she intended to defraud with this document, the offense could be a third- or even second-degree felony.
Mr. Watkins certainly knows the law ? and what his office can prove ? better than we do, but why isn't this a felony?
We heard recently that a so-called memo agreement between Ms. Shaw and the DA's office was imminent. It would require her to live up to certain terms over a set period. If she did so, the charge would disappear. It's similar to deferred adjudication probation, except there's no finding of guilt ? or guilty plea. ...
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Speaking of lawyers, what's with State Senator Royce West being named DART's
bond counsel? A state senator employed by a publicly-funded entity?
That's so incestuous you know the babies are all going to have 2 heads!
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These people are
shameless. No amount of light is going to make these critters
scurry back into their hidey holes. They don't care whether we
approve of their nefarious activities -- so long as we keep paying our
taxes. |
They don't care if one of their
own gets caught in criminal matter because they have the power to fix the
problem and make it all go away.
Gehrig Salda?:
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins should
ensure Lynn Flint Shaw is not treated as
being above the law. Allen Gwinn brings
up some very good points on his Dallas.org.
Is DA
Watkins attempting to hoodwink Dallas County voters?
Wonder why
www.DallasProgress.com or
www.DallasBlog.com have not posted anything on this subject to
date? |
Why aren't Black community
leaders calling for someone's head in all this? Their silence can be taken
as condoning what Lynn did. Of course, their silence may just be flat out
fear of retaliation. Then again, their silence may be similar to my own
ambiguity in all this.
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I hate what Lynn has
done. Yet, I know the spider's web she has been caught up in.
She loved so much being important and being in the circle of the movers
and shakers. All those boards and charity events took time and
energy that she did not spend on her business, whatever she actually
did. The power and recognition is as addictive as any drug.
She was a user, and she was used. She thought her artsy fartsy
buddies were her friends and loved her, and they pimped her out. |
Allen Gwinn is probably right
about the deliberate move to protect Lynn by DA Watkins. Lynn has been a
good soldier for the ODB these past few dreadful weeks.
She has been stoic and almost silent since the forged signature tsunami hit her
world. You know the ODB are scared to death. She's one of their own,
even if only as a useful hanger-on. Has she called in her markers for the
price of her silence?
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If
Lynn Flint Shaw pulls just a
couple of loose threads, the very powerful web the ODB have spun to
control our city just might come apart. |
sb
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