For the past year plus, as a crime victim in Harris County, I have asked Isiah Carey and D’Artagnan Bebel, FoxTV news reporter and Executive Manager respectively, to consider a story on corruption involving the Harris County drug court and one of its associated drug recovery churches. A drug recovery church is a church run by, and composed of, current and ex drug addicts and alcoholics. Both support Houston’s drug court, a new model which allows offenders who are drug addicts arrested for theft, prostitution, credit card fraud, check fraud, possession, and range of other charges, to receive an intensely supervised probation including rehab services, AA, etc., versus jail. Others who commit the same crime, and are not addicts, receive jail for the very same crimes. Isiah emiceed last year’s fundraiser for the drug court foundation, which raises money for drug court, and D'Artagnan sits on their board.
While studies show that drug crime victims receive, on average, 6-17% remuneration rates, Carey and Bebel haven’t raised, publically, a penny for drug crime victims, but seem preoccupied with raising funding for the drug court, where much of this money goes to pay for items such as glasses and braces for offenders.
In my particular case, as a victim, I tried to help – by taking in, paying for her rehab, threatening her drug dealers – a young women with an addiction. Her father ran a rehab at a drug addict church, Chapelwood/Mercy Street, WHILE AN ADDICT AT THE VERY SAME TIME. Going to the father seemed fruitless. Chapelwood/Mercy Street has an association with the drug court, drug court judges routinely attend events at the church, and many offenders attend the church. One victim in our case, a working professional, claimed he was threatened, and thrown out of the courtroom by the founder of the drug church, himself a self-admitted ex-addict and thief. That victim was made the unknowing getaway car in one of our offender’s thefts. Another victim, who took her in, had thousands also stolen from him, we later discovered. An internal affairs investigation into the case ordered by the then administrative court judge, Stricklin, revealed that Mary Covington, head of Houston’s drug court, went into the courtroom inappropriately (and illegally) to ask the judge for special favors for the offender in our case – Covington continues to run drug court, while not a single victim of our offender has been paid a penny of tens of thousands in damage, despite the fact that TX statute’s clearly make it illegal to attempt to influence a judge. The offender stole over ten thousand dollars of my items, and stole my car and drove it through the parking gate of my condo. Neither I, my condo, nor my insurance were ordered a dollar of restitution.
Oddly, less than a month after an internal affairs investigation which promised action against Chapelwood/Mercy Street and a reassessment of the entire drug court model, both the lawyer who conducted the investigation and the lawyer who ordered it resigned/retired, and a new drug court judge was named from where else, but Chapelwood/Mercy Street – the judge was an ex-alcoholic. The civil case against the offender was also in front of a judge from Chapelwood, who did not recuse himself.
Less than a month after I wrote the Governor’s office and every member of the Senate and House Criminal Justice Committees, the judge on my case, Campbell, announced her “retirement” citing “cases that did not work out” to the Chron. Rick “Good Hair” Perry promptly replaced her with Katherine Cabaniss, a member of the Harris County Drug Court Foundation (which Bebel also sits on the board of). Perhaps Rick, a huge drug court supporter who recently won the 1st National Association of Drug Court Professionals Award, couldn’t have Campbell standing up to Covington, drug court (his favored new model), and God forbid, a Protestant Christian Church. As a sidenote, my case was originally filed as a hate crime, yet for some reason, after all this, Chapelwood Protestant is still associated with the courtroom.
As a final sidenote, the offender in my case worked – prostituted herself – at two strip clubs run by the former head of the NJ mafia, who the feds decided to give 5 years in jail, and relocate to Houston for several murders and attempted murders in exchange for ratting out members of the NJ mafia. Don’t know how much juicer my story can get, and why Mr. Carey and Mr. Bebel would avoid it, other than it doesn’t make their favored drug court and their judicial friends look good. And Fox News can’t possibly shed a church in a negative light.
MyFoxHouston Reviews
For the past year plus, as a crime victim in Harris County, I have asked Isiah Carey and D’Artagnan Bebel, FoxTV news reporter and Executive Manager respectively, to consider a story on corruption involving the Harris County drug court and one of its associated drug recovery churches. A drug recovery church is a church run by, and composed of, current and ex drug addicts and alcoholics. Both support Houston’s drug court, a new model which allows offenders who are drug addicts arrested for theft, prostitution, credit card fraud, check fraud, possession, and range of other charges, to receive an intensely supervised probation including rehab services, AA, etc., versus jail. Others who commit the same crime, and are not addicts, receive jail for the very same crimes. Isiah emiceed last year’s fundraiser for the drug court foundation, which raises money for drug court, and D'Artagnan sits on their board.
While studies show that drug crime victims receive, on average, 6-17% remuneration rates, Carey and Bebel haven’t raised, publically, a penny for drug crime victims, but seem preoccupied with raising funding for the drug court, where much of this money goes to pay for items such as glasses and braces for offenders.
In my particular case, as a victim, I tried to help – by taking in, paying for her rehab, threatening her drug dealers – a young women with an addiction. Her father ran a rehab at a drug addict church, Chapelwood/Mercy Street, WHILE AN ADDICT AT THE VERY SAME TIME. Going to the father seemed fruitless. Chapelwood/Mercy Street has an association with the drug court, drug court judges routinely attend events at the church, and many offenders attend the church. One victim in our case, a working professional, claimed he was threatened, and thrown out of the courtroom by the founder of the drug church, himself a self-admitted ex-addict and thief. That victim was made the unknowing getaway car in one of our offender’s thefts. Another victim, who took her in, had thousands also stolen from him, we later discovered. An internal affairs investigation into the case ordered by the then administrative court judge, Stricklin, revealed that Mary Covington, head of Houston’s drug court, went into the courtroom inappropriately (and illegally) to ask the judge for special favors for the offender in our case – Covington continues to run drug court, while not a single victim of our offender has been paid a penny of tens of thousands in damage, despite the fact that TX statute’s clearly make it illegal to attempt to influence a judge. The offender stole over ten thousand dollars of my items, and stole my car and drove it through the parking gate of my condo. Neither I, my condo, nor my insurance were ordered a dollar of restitution.
Oddly, less than a month after an internal affairs investigation which promised action against Chapelwood/Mercy Street and a reassessment of the entire drug court model, both the lawyer who conducted the investigation and the lawyer who ordered it resigned/retired, and a new drug court judge was named from where else, but Chapelwood/Mercy Street – the judge was an ex-alcoholic. The civil case against the offender was also in front of a judge from Chapelwood, who did not recuse himself.
Less than a month after I wrote the Governor’s office and every member of the Senate and House Criminal Justice Committees, the judge on my case, Campbell, announced her “retirement” citing “cases that did not work out” to the Chron. Rick “Good Hair” Perry promptly replaced her with Katherine Cabaniss, a member of the Harris County Drug Court Foundation (which Bebel also sits on the board of). Perhaps Rick, a huge drug court supporter who recently won the 1st National Association of Drug Court Professionals Award, couldn’t have Campbell standing up to Covington, drug court (his favored new model), and God forbid, a Protestant Christian Church. As a sidenote, my case was originally filed as a hate crime, yet for some reason, after all this, Chapelwood Protestant is still associated with the courtroom.
As a final sidenote, the offender in my case worked – prostituted herself – at two strip clubs run by the former head of the NJ mafia, who the feds decided to give 5 years in jail, and relocate to Houston for several murders and attempted murders in exchange for ratting out members of the NJ mafia. Don’t know how much juicer my story can get, and why Mr. Carey and Mr. Bebel would avoid it, other than it doesn’t make their favored drug court and their judicial friends look good. And Fox News can’t possibly shed a church in a negative light.