Too bad.

A federal judge on Friday ordered former Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to pay $18,900 in sanctions after finding him in contempt of court for deleting more than 2,500 e-mails that had been subpoenaed for a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Additionally, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt determined Scott Durfee, general counsel for the district attorney's office, was jointly responsible for paying $5,000 of that, finding Durfee failed to appropriately advise Rosenthal on how to comply with the subpoena.

Both Rosenthal and Durfee have until April 30 to pay their respective fines, according to the judge's order released late Friday afternoon.

Neither Rosenthal nor Durfee could be reached for comment.

Whether the county pays those sanctions with taxpayers' money is a question to be decided by Commissioners Court. The court must determine whether paying the sanctions would serve a public purpose, said County Attorney Mike Stafford.

I don't know that I agree with the fine against Durfee -- as an attorney, Rosenthal should have been well-aware of the requirements of an order to preserve all emails.

And I'll be honest -- I believe a little jail time should have been meted out here against Rosenthal for his misdeeds.

Let's hope he is quickly and permanently disbarred.

Oh, and by the way -- any member of the Commissioner's Court who votes to use taxpayer funds to pay these fines needs to be voted out of office immediately. And if that puts the government of Harris County in the hands of the Democrats, so be it.

Posted by: Greg at 12:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 262 words, total size 2 kb.