Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector Carmen Turner was arrested Thursday and charged by federal authorities with theft of government funds and wire fraud.
Prosecutors allege that Turner, a Democrat first elected in 2021, hired two people to work for her as deputy tax clerks but assigned them to care for her elderly mother, using county payroll funds to cover their salaries.
U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz, a former GOP candidate for Texas attorney general, told reporters at a news conference Thursday that Turner also conspired with those employees to steal thousands of dollars from federal grant programs. One of the employees is cooperating with authorities; the other, Shermerrylyn Regina Fields, was also arrested Thursday.
Reitz and representatives from the FBI and Texas Rangers said at the news conference that Turner also hired Victor Calvin Ewing, the father of her adult son, to work in the tax office even though he had another job. Prosecutors allege that Ewing transferred a portion of his Fort Bend County paycheck to Turner. He was also arrested Thursday.
The timing of the indictments struck some as calculated. Although Turner’s term doesn’t expire until 2028, Fort Bend County is in the midst of a competitive county judge’s race between Republican Daniel Wong and Democrat Dexter McCoy. Local party officials have been ruthlessly fighting through legal action and social media posts since Democrat-turned-Republican former County Judge KP George was convicted of felony money laundering earlier this year.
Early voting runs through October 30 and Election Day is November 3.
Interim Judge Wong — who was appointed to the position in April but many believe his appointment had expired in June — called a press conference Thursday to highlight “corruption” among Democratic officials in Fort Bend County.
“The indictment and arrest of Carmen Turner today is a stunning reminder of the cloud of corruption that has hung over Fort Bend County for too long,” Wong said. “The people of Fort Bend County deserve a government that is focused on integrity, accountability and restoring the public trust.”
The Fort Bend County Democratic Party issued a statement Thursday evening referring to Wong’s press conference as a campaign speech.
“The illegitimate, unelected, and illegal usurper of the County Judge’s office is the root of corruption in Fort Bend County,” party officials said in the statement. “He is the cloud of which he speaks. Due to his illegal occupation — and when he is finally evicted — the Commissioners Court will have to go back to June 17, 2026, and revote every single vote the Commissioner’s Court took, costing taxpayers untold thousands of dollars.”
McCoy wrote on X that public corruption has no place in Fort Bend County. “If you steal from taxpayers or use your position to enrich yourself or our family, like Donald Trump does each day, you answer for it. I don’t care who you are or what party you belong to,” he said.
“Fort Bend families are sick and tired of the chaos and corruption Republicans have normalized. And Daniel Wong made it worse,” he added. “One of his first acts as interim County Judge was to roll out the welcome mat for Ken Paxton, the most corrupt elected official in Texas.”
The Texas Tribune reported this week that the Department of Justice’s general practice “is to not announce headline-grabbing investigations or indictments in the lead up to elections, to avoid the appearance of political interference.”
“This policy, which is an informal tradition rather than a written directive, typically limits investigations and indictments 60 days before elections,” the report states. “Republican and Democratic administrations have been accused of violating this precedent, but a flurry of recent investigations has drawn criticism of the Trump DOJ’s practices.”
Reitz said at Thursday’s news conference that the timing of the indictments had nothing to do with the Fort Bend County elections.
It was unclear Thursday who would handle the day-to-day operations of the tax office while Turner’s case goes through the legal process.
Prior to being elected, Turner was indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2016 for bankruptcy fraud. In that case, prosecutors claimed she filed multiple bankruptcy cases to prevent creditors from starting foreclosure proceedings, but did not follow court requirements to file additional documents or submit payment plans. Most of the charges were dismissed and Turner was sentenced to one year of probation.
