Bush Cronies Involved in TYC Sex Scandal Coverup
The sex scandal in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) has been page one news here in Texas the past few weeks, but so far has received only limited coverage outside the state. That may soon change, however, now that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other federal officials have been implicated in the cover-up.
It’s an ugly story. Since at least 1999, the TYC has been infested with pedophiles who prey on the underage male inmates in their charge. Efforts to expose this rampant sex abuse have been frustrated at every turn. Two years ago, Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski conducted a criminal investigation of the agency and documented these activities, but when he presented his findings to state authorities, they refused to prosecute. Then he went to federal authorities, who also refused to prosecute. That’s where the Bush administration enters the picture.
According to Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, none other than Karl Rove orchestrated this miscarriage of justice. Angle believes that the reason for the failure to prosecute the TYC case was to prevent the scandal from erupting at a time when Republican governor Rick Perry was facing an election challenge from former comptroller Carole Strayhorn.
The decision not to prosecute came from the office of U.S. Attorney and Bush crony Johnny Sutton. An assistant in his office, Bill Baumann, who wrote the letter to Texas Ranger Burzynski justifying this decision on the grounds that none of the young victims suffered “bodily injury” and may have even enjoyed being sodomized by TYC guards and administrators. (LINK)
Baumann’s name, incidentally, turned up recently in another case that has caused outrage in the state. It was Baumann who was the lead prosecutor in the case against Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez who was accused of unnecessarily using deadly force in an altercation with some illegal aliens.
I have often criticized cops for such matters, and will likely do so again. But this is not one of those times. The actions of Hernandez were appropriate. A van carrying the illegal aliens attempted to run over Hernandez during a traffic shop. He shot out one of the tires of the van. In the process, a bullet fragment struck one of the occupants, causing a slight injury. The Texas Rangers investigated the matter and cleared Hernandez, and there the matter should have ended. But, as occurred in the similar case of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Campean, the Mexican government and the Bush administration colluded to force prosecution of the case. As a result, Hernandez is now doing time in federal prison and is facing a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit from the criminals who tried to run over him. (LINK)
Gee, I wonder what would happen to me if I illegally entered Mexico and tried to run over a Mexican cop. I wonder how fairly I would be treated in a country whose judicial system is even more rotten than ours and where non-Mexican citizens, especially those who enter the country illegally, have no rights.
But I digress. The Hernandez and TYC cases are just the latest in a long list of grotesque examples of what passes for criminal justice in this country. The US is becoming more and more like Mexico every day. Which, with regard to the Hernandez case, may be the point: to discourage enforcement of laws against illegal immigration in order to erase our national borders and make this country indistinguishable from Mexico. At present, it is with great difficulty that we are able to expose and prosecute criminals such as the pedophiles running the TYC, but the day this country merges with Mexico in a North American Union such investigations will have as much success as Mexico's "investigation" of the mass murders of the women of Juarez.
It’s an ugly story. Since at least 1999, the TYC has been infested with pedophiles who prey on the underage male inmates in their charge. Efforts to expose this rampant sex abuse have been frustrated at every turn. Two years ago, Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski conducted a criminal investigation of the agency and documented these activities, but when he presented his findings to state authorities, they refused to prosecute. Then he went to federal authorities, who also refused to prosecute. That’s where the Bush administration enters the picture.
According to Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, none other than Karl Rove orchestrated this miscarriage of justice. Angle believes that the reason for the failure to prosecute the TYC case was to prevent the scandal from erupting at a time when Republican governor Rick Perry was facing an election challenge from former comptroller Carole Strayhorn.
The decision not to prosecute came from the office of U.S. Attorney and Bush crony Johnny Sutton. An assistant in his office, Bill Baumann, who wrote the letter to Texas Ranger Burzynski justifying this decision on the grounds that none of the young victims suffered “bodily injury” and may have even enjoyed being sodomized by TYC guards and administrators. (LINK)
Baumann’s name, incidentally, turned up recently in another case that has caused outrage in the state. It was Baumann who was the lead prosecutor in the case against Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez who was accused of unnecessarily using deadly force in an altercation with some illegal aliens.
I have often criticized cops for such matters, and will likely do so again. But this is not one of those times. The actions of Hernandez were appropriate. A van carrying the illegal aliens attempted to run over Hernandez during a traffic shop. He shot out one of the tires of the van. In the process, a bullet fragment struck one of the occupants, causing a slight injury. The Texas Rangers investigated the matter and cleared Hernandez, and there the matter should have ended. But, as occurred in the similar case of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Campean, the Mexican government and the Bush administration colluded to force prosecution of the case. As a result, Hernandez is now doing time in federal prison and is facing a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit from the criminals who tried to run over him. (LINK)
Gee, I wonder what would happen to me if I illegally entered Mexico and tried to run over a Mexican cop. I wonder how fairly I would be treated in a country whose judicial system is even more rotten than ours and where non-Mexican citizens, especially those who enter the country illegally, have no rights.
But I digress. The Hernandez and TYC cases are just the latest in a long list of grotesque examples of what passes for criminal justice in this country. The US is becoming more and more like Mexico every day. Which, with regard to the Hernandez case, may be the point: to discourage enforcement of laws against illegal immigration in order to erase our national borders and make this country indistinguishable from Mexico. At present, it is with great difficulty that we are able to expose and prosecute criminals such as the pedophiles running the TYC, but the day this country merges with Mexico in a North American Union such investigations will have as much success as Mexico's "investigation" of the mass murders of the women of Juarez.
posted by Mack White at 5:56 PM
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