Lawsuit: Texas senator used influence to stop investigation
A former sergeant with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has sued the agency, arguing that he was improperly fired last year after reporting that state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, used her influence to halt investigations into a bar she and her husband partly owned.
However, Bill Miller — a consultant representing Huffman’s husband, Keith Lawyer — said Friday that Lawyer sold his interest in the bar in 2015, so there would have been no reason to interfere in an investigation that took place in 2017.
“He had a deferred payment, and that took him out of everything” related to the bar, Miller said.
The whistleblower lawsuit, filed Tuesday in state District Court in Travis County, claims Marcus Stokke was fired as the enforcement sergeant for 24 Northeast Texas counties after reporting Huffman’s “public corruption and obstruction of justice” to the FBI, federal prosecutors and TABC investigators.
https://www.statesman.com/news/lawsuit-texas-senator-used-influence-stop-investigation/aVSfdtP8fphcP4ZUoUZCWO/