(A lawsuit filed in Longview against the Texas Department of Public safety Texas Ranger and possible corruption in the investigative section, is strikingly similar to complaints raised against the DPS by five staff members of the Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector's office in their Operation Dirty Deeds. Those complaints with the DPS Inspector general's Office come as the DPS was sued in late November for alleged corruption in Longview. Is, as the plaintiff alleges in the lawsuit, there a "culture of corruption" at the DPS that extends all over the state, including Cameron County?)
Longview News-JournalA lawsuit alleging corruption at the Texas Department of Public Safety spills over into the unsolved 2016 murder of prominent Longview businessman Ronnie Horaney.
The federal lawsuit filed by former Longview resident Ty Clevenger on behalf of retired Mount Pleasant-based DPS investigator Darren Lubbe, raises multiple accusations of DPS cover-ups by superiors and retaliation against Lubbe in a 24-page claim.
Clevenger accuses DPS Director Steven McCraw of allowing a “good old boy” culture to flourish in the state law enforcement agency. Clevenger lists multiple examples in which he says Lubbe tried to report wrongdoing within the department only to suffer repercussions to his own career.
Lubbe said Wednesday that he served 19 years in DPS, including extended special operations work on the Mexican border. He had accrued a year of unused sick leave, for a total 20 years’ service by the time he retired.
He said his troubles with his superiors began in 2014 after his captain in Mount Pleasant, Mark Milanovich, began pressuring him to attend a cowboy church the captain liked.
“ ... (T)hat triggered an ongoing campaign of harassment from the captain and his cronies,” the lawsuit reads.
Lubbe said he is a Christian who felt his captain was overstepping his proper leadership role.
“My religion is between me and God,” he said. “And it wasn’t anybody’s business.”
Lubbe left DPS in the wake of a 2017 “nondisciplinary transfer” to Conroe where he believed a hostile supervisor awaited his arrival.
“It’s a corrupt system,” he said. “They’ll lie and steal, falsify documents. ... I love DPS. But I don’t fall into that category of being a ‘yes’ man when (stuff) is wrong.”
The public safety department, and the Texas Rangers division that’s attached to it, had not filed a response by Wednesday evening. A request for comment sent to DPS communications in Austin drew this reply:
“Thank you for your inquiry. The department looks forward to refuting these spurious claims through the proper legal proceedings.”
Clevenger, a New York attorney hailing from Longview, is a longtime critic of and legal saddle burr for DPS. He also is a Union Grove High School alum and former Camp County sheriff’s deputy and was a News-Journal reporter in 1994 and 1995.
Clevenger names at least 25 defendants in the suit, mostly upper-ranking DPS officers.
To read more on the lawsuit, click on link: http://lawflog.com/?p=2058
3 comments:
Just like BISD, COB, CC, POB, PUB, ABCD & G.
This is Brownsville and the norm not Coruption, but the excepted fact.
The guy running the show must be from Brownsville...
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