Former Fort Bend County Judge KP George was convicted of felony money laundering in March and sentenced to six months in jail last week, so why is he roaming free with seemingly no consequences?
George’s case was immediately appealed following the June 16 sentence handed down by District Judge Maggie Jaramillo. So while he spent a few hours at the county lockup and collected a new mugshot, he’s basically back to being a regular resident while the case is on appeal, which could take up to three years.
George’s attorney Jared Woodfill said Tuesday his client has suffered plenty of consequences as a result of what Woodfill maintains is a political vendetta by Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton, a Democrat up for re-election in November. George was twice elected as a Democrat but switched parties last year amid his legal troubles, hired Woodfill (a former Harris County Republican Party chair), and ran unsuccessfully in the GOP primary for county judge earlier this year.
In addition to the jail time, George was sentenced to five years of probation, 200 hours of community service, and he can’t be employed “where monetary fiduciary duties are involved,” but all of that is on hold while the case is under appeal. “None of that kicks in unless we lose the appeal,” Woodfill said, noting that George has endured significant punishment even though he’s steadfastly maintained his innocence.
“They destroyed his life and his reputation, took him out of office, cost him a whole lot of money in defending his case and ultimately put his freedom on the line,” Woodfill said.
George was scheduled to go to trial on July 21 for a misdemeanor identity misrepresentation case, but those charges were dismissed. Woodfill said that’s because the evidence against George was weak and discovery implicated Middleton, the DA, as being aware of the social media hoax while it was happening. Middleton has repeatedly denied any involvement in the case and said the assertion that he was pursuing a political vendetta is “absolutely false.”
Second Assistant District Attorney Wesley Wittig said Tuesday that his office dropped the misdemeanor because it had already secured a felony conviction and a sentence that included jail time.
“It’s common practice when you have a felony conviction and a misdemeanor charge,” Wittig said. “It serves no purpose to spend more time and money pursuing that case when you cannot get any more punishment than you already got with the felony.”
Wittig said the district attorney was pleased with George’s sentence in the money laundering case, which could have been up to 10 years in prison. “Any citizen in this situation would have gotten probation,” he said. “I doubt a citizen would have gotten jail time at all. If so, it would be a lot less than the maximum amount.”
The ADA speculated that George got a “stiff” sentence because he was “a public servant who you’re supposed to be able to trust.” The former county judge was found guilty of taking about $46,000 out of his campaign funds for personal use.
Some social media comments have suggested that George should pay restitution to the people from whom he accepted campaign donations, but Wittig said it doesn’t work that way.
“Restitution is owed to the campaign account, not to the individual donors,” he said. “He’s going to be ineligible with a felony conviction to run for office again. That’s why restitution wasn’t considered.” George was assessed a $5,000 fine that isn’t immediately due because of the appeal.
Jaramillo considered the misdemeanor evidence when handing down the sentence on the felony, Wittig said, which is why George’s bond conditions prohibit him from using social media and from communicating with his former staff member Taral Patel, who admitted guilt in the identity misrepresentation case.
Woodfill said the DA’s office pursued charges against Patel for creating fake Facebook accounts to gain favor with Fort Bend County voters during one of George’s re-election campaigns. Prosecutors cut a deal with Patel, who was planning to testify against George. Woodfill maintains that, based on sworn testimony from Patel, several high-ranking Fort Bend County Democrats, including Middleton, knew Patel had fake Facebook accounts.
“All of this would have come out in the trial,” Woodfill says. “When George wouldn’t take a deal on the misdemeanor, that’s when they started looking for issues with his campaign finance reports. Then we had the money laundering trial. But the case that started it all has been thrown out.”
Wittig has said repeatedly that no plea deal was ever offered to George. Regardless of how or why the money laundering investigation against George started, witnesses at trial testified that George moved money from his campaign funds to personal accounts and used it to buy a new home and pay property taxes, among other things.
Woodfill says George repaid himself for personal loans he made to his re-election campaign, a practice he says is legal and common. Woodfill also claims that the charge of money laundering is unusual based on the evidence, and that’s why he thinks the appeal will be successful.
“I think we’re going to win the appeal because this is an approach that has never been taken before in the history of money laundering in the state of Texas,” he said. “In fact, there’s a case involving [former Republican Congressman] Tom DeLay, where they tried to do something similar and Tom DeLay was sentenced to eight years. It was reversed. The court said they were not unlawfully obtained funds, and that’s the case here.”
“If this is allowed to stand, I think that any elected official or candidate who makes a mistake on a campaign finance report could arguably be charged with money laundering,” he added.
Woodfill further said that the DA’s office chose to charge George with money laundering because the seven-year statute of limitations on more reasonable charges like tampering with government records or wire fraud had been exceeded.
Wittig says there are a lot of problems with that logic. “One of the points they wanted to make on defense was that this wasn’t a drug dealer; this wasn’t organized crime. That’s what you think of when you think of money laundering,” Wittig said. “That doesn’t mean that this isn’t money laundering, that the crime doesn’t qualify. That defense didn’t work for them.”
“As for DeLay, the defense team consistently misquoted DeLay and misstated what that case meant. They tried to convince the judge that their case was like that one, and since DeLay was exonerated, this case should be just like that. A problem was, they missed the point of the case,” Wittig added.
The Fort Bend County DA’s Office brought in special prosecutor Brian Wice to assist with George’s trial. Wice served as an appellate lawyer on DeLay’s 2010 money laundering case and successfully argued to get the case overturned. “Nobody knows that case better than Brian Wice,” Wittig said. “He could very competently challenge all those pre-trial assertions that they were making that weren’t accurate.”
Wittig estimated that the DA’s office spent “tens of thousands” to prosecute the felony case against George. Woodfill said he thinks the price tag is well over $1 million. “When this goes away, Brian Middleton will need to apologize to Judge George and the taxpayers,” Woodfill said.
The assistant DA acknowledged that George’s appeal could take a long time but said he “respectfully disagrees” that it will be successful.
