Kim Ogg - Former Harris County DA Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Seven fifty one hour time. Here on Houston's Morning News,
we're joined by a former Harris County DA, Kim Ogg,
who is accusing the current DA, Shawn Tier, of a
cover up in quid pro quo, as I said, and
dropping charges against former Harris County Public Health director Barbie Robinson, who,
by the way, was fired from her job. You don't
fire somebody for no reason, do you, Kim, No, you don't.

(00:30):
Good morning, good morning. Not in this day and age,
you don't, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
So she was fired after it was discovered that she
was working in two other counties at the same time,
she was receiving an enormous salary at taxpayers spence here.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, that's a problem. You were bringing charges against her.
Those charges have been dropped. Why do you suspect the
shawnteer's dropping those charges.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's a cover up and it's payback for the endorsements
of several public officials, including Lena Hidalgo and Rodney Ellis
prior to the election. I was primaried. One of the
major points of Tier's platform was that the cases against
Lena Hidalgo's staffers were political. Now he's made the same

(01:20):
allegations about the case against Barbie Robinson. Both of these
cases were founded on solid evidence. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I think the thing that is particularly it has to
be particularly frustrating for you about all this is is
that we pretty much warned everybody this was going to happen,
didn't we. I know, you did your level best to
warn people of what would happen if the Shawnteer instead
of you were going to be the district attorney. And
certainly it's coming to pass I did.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
My voice was really drowned out by about four million
dollars worth of George Soros's money behind Shawn Tier. It's
really damaging to taxpayers and to the people's attitude here
in Harris County, where we count on our government spend
our tax dollars properly. The program that Barbie Robinson was

(02:10):
administering is now a thirty eight million dollar program that
is serving, according to their own website, less than one
thousand people. Do the math. The next lowest bid or
the next highest bid was millions of dollars less, and
it was put forth by our own Harris Health Center,
which is in charge of mental health here in Harris County.

(02:33):
Since this program was supposed to provide rap around services,
et cetera. That made sense. But instead Barbie Robinson sat
on a committee where she voted for this Sonoma Valley
program called Access to be run by IBM in California,
and to date it is run by, at least according

(02:55):
to their website, an individual living and working in Los Angeles,
supervising a thirty eight million dollar program.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Here, let me run through the reasons that supposedly this
case was dropped, at least according to the district attorney,
and have you take a look at them one by one.
No evidence that Robinson obtained any tangible personal or monetary
benefit from how these contracts were awarded. Do you believe
that she got personal or monetary benefit.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
She was offered extra employment as a lawyer. Now she's
never practiced, but that was one of the I think
monetary gains that she was offered. Her husband was also
offered extra employment. And she was again pursuing these other
contracts in other counties without the knowledge of anyone in

(03:46):
Harris County according to the county administrator. And so there
was evidence that she would have benefited. She was just
stopped before she did. And it's not a requirement that
criminals actually away with the money.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
No evidence to prove that there was any attempt to deceive, coerce,
to fraud or harm the county by Robinson through the
contract award process. According to the DA.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, the county administrator fired her as soon as the
communications between different contractors in other counties came to light.
We found out about the communications by IBM executives with
Robinson while the contract was under consideration, before it had
ever been given. We found those afterwards. So there was evidence,

(04:36):
strong evidence that she would have benefited and that she
lied about the conflict of interests that she had with
IBM execs.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I think the thing that is the taxpayer firsonly find
the most frustrating is that these types of things in
Harris County happened over and over and over again, and
nobody ever gets rarely gets any way convicted and rarely
gets punished for what they do. There's no incentive to stop.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
You know, when you can rely upon political withdrawal or
removal of a prosecutor instead of a legal defense. I
think taxpayers are going to remain subject to corruption that
is rife in Harris County government right now. We can
expect to be starved in our police force, starved at

(05:20):
the jail where people are dying, starved in the courts
for money, and meanwhile, programs that are really run by
people in outside states. For whatever reason, we can continue
to expect programs that we don't need or want instead
of investment in our public safety.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
All right, thanks as always, good to talk to you.
Appreciate it. Former Harris County D. A. Km Ogg. You'll
have a great day. We'll see tomorrow morning, bright and early,
starting in five. Hope to see you this afternoon four
on Am ninety fifty KPRC