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District clerk, two employees guilty
File Photos - From left, District Clerk Patricia Crigger and two of her employees, Rebecca Littrell and Sherry Bell, were found guilty Tuesday on charges of conspiracy to commit abuse of official capacity. Each of them was sentenced to two years probation.
By Dan Eakin, deakin@acnpapers.com
Collin County District Clerk Patricia Crigger and two of her employees Tuesday afternoon were found guilty by a jury on charges of conspiracy to commit abuse of official capacity.
Crigger and Rebecca Littrell were found guilty of abuse of official capacity and conspiracy to commit abuse of official capacity, while another employee, Sherry Bell, was found guilty only of conspiracy to commit abuse of official capacity.
Crigger and Littrell were sentenced by visiting District Judge John Nelms to two years probation on each count, to run concurrently, on condition that they will not appeal. Bell was also sentenced to two years probation on condition that she will not appeal.
Following the verdict, which came after about two hours of deliberation, Nelms asked Crigger to stand. He told her that she was to be relieved immediately of her duties as district clerk, as required by law when an official is convicted of a felony. Nelms did not rule on whether Littrell and Bell could continue their employment.
Crigger, Littrell, Kunkle and Bell had been charged in connection with allegations that employees in the district clerk's office had worked on Crigger's campaign on county time between December 2009 and June 2010.
Crigger, who was represented by attorney Bob Hinton, had previously worked in the district clerk's office, and many in the office believed she was the candidate best qualified to replace Kunkle, who was not seeking re-election.
Following the verdict, Kunkle's attorney, John Hardin, said, "This was a hollow victory for my client, but at the end of the day, the jury had the difficult duty to assess the facts in the case. I am saddened that the others were found guilty."
Eric Walpole, who represented Littrell, simply said after the trial, "We are devastated."
Last Friday, Cpl. A.P. Davidson of the Texas Rangers presented photographs taken of district clerk employees besides campaign signs for Crigger in front of an elementary school. He also presented emails from district clerk employees that he said showed that employees had campaigned on county time.
Defense attorneys argued that the employees campaigned while taking paid time off (PTO), and therefore were not campaigning on county time.
The prosecution contended that employees had been promised their PTO back at a later date.
John Helms, a Dallas private attorney assigned to prosecute the case along with Rebecca Gregory, said all employees did not get back all of the PTO they had been promised.
Nelms warned the crowd at the trial that there should be no outbursts of either happiness or otherwise when the verdicts were read. The courtroom, which has 110 seats, was filled almost to capacity when the verdicts were read.
Several people were weeping as they left the courtroom after the trial.
The following are comments from the readers.
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
PGB1965 wrote on Dec 11, 2011 7:14 AM:
" About time McKinney cleans up some of thier problems. "
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