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Houston man gets probation in $1 million Dr Pepper rebate scam

A Shell station owner in Bakersfield, Calif. complained to no avail when he didn’t get a promised $75 rebate after replacing Tropicana Fruit Punch in his dispensers with Diet Dr Pepper. The Shell owner took his complaint up the chain to Dr Pepper.

The Houston rebate company contracted by Dr Pepper ultimately came through with the money, but the 2014 episode shed light on a scam its owner had been running for five years, documenting rebates in fake spreadsheets and invoices but ultimately pocketing the money owed to vendors and customers.

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Lawmakers call on Chief Art Acevedo to release audit on Houston police’s narcotics division

In the March 4 letter, State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, wrote that the continuing revelations of misconduct that have emerged about the Jan. 28 2019 drug raid that ended with the deaths of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle have “severely compromised” the public’s trust of HPD’s special units and criminal investigations. Democratic state Reps. Anna Eastman, Christina Morales, Jon Rosenthal and Senfronia Thompson all co-signed the letter.

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DA’s office recommends man arrested by ex-HPD cop be declared “actually innocent”

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A dozen years after he was first arrested, Otis Mallet is one step closer to being fully exonerated.

Monday morning, a judge agreed with prosecutors and defense attorneys, recommending the exoneration to the Court of Appeals.

For years, Mallet and his attorneys have argued that evidence in his drug case was made up by former Houston Police Officer Gerald Goines.

Today, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg agreed, stating that Mallet was “Actually Innocent” during a court hearing.

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Houston judge sides with death row prisoner

Whether or not the state of Texas executes Ronald Hamilton could all come down to the fingerprints left more than 15 years ago on a half-empty 40-ounce malt liquor bottle found sitting outside a Houston convenience store. They were the likely fingerprints of a killer – a killer who was not 42-year-old Hamilton, a Harris County court found last week.

Judge DaSean Jones on Wednesday recommended consideration of a new punishment in light of the condemned man’s claims that the state withheld evidence tying the fingerprint to another possible suspect. The case still has to go up to the conservative Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for approval before the local court can move forward, but it’s not often that death row prisoners get this far in their appeals.

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Harris County DA Kim Ogg seeks to overturn 91 more cases tied to disgraced ex-HPD cop Gerald Goines

Prosecutors have identified another 91 cases that they believe should be dismissed because of the role disgraced former Houston police officer Gerald Goines played in the convictions.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Wednesday that her prosecutors have begun filing requests to judges to begin the process of getting each case dismissed.

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