SocraticGadfly: More stench in Marlin, Texas

March 07, 2019

More stench in Marlin, Texas


Shock me that Falls County Sheriff Ricky Scaman, canned by the Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission after extensive investigation for being in a topless bar while in duty and having his arm around a topless waitress (and being involved in legal action over that), is now facing a federal sexual assault lawsuit from a former Falls County jail staffer.

Update, Sept. 27, 2020: He's now also facing a sexual assault criminal charge.

It's also funny that when I did a DuckDuckGo image search for "Ricky Scaman" plus "Texas Alcoholic BeverageS Commission" plus "topless," a lot of softcore gay stuff came up.

That would be on top of the sexual harassment suit filed by his former chief deputy.

And, the jailer, Shirley Boger, had previously filed a complaint with the Workforce Commission.

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But that's just the first half of a doubleheader.

Former Marlin PD Captain Hector Gonzalez will get NO jail time after pleading guilty to sexual assault.

His lawyer, Matthew Wright, won an American Bar Association award for non-profit legal work in 2011. He also lost the GOP primary to be 82nd District Judge a year ago. I wonder if a non-cop pled guilty to sexual assault, if Judge Wright would think deferred adjudication was "appropriate."

I tweeted this to Wright bud Ty Clevenger, since he pretends to always like to harsh the mallow of bad cops, and thought I would get snarky about a bad cop represented by a lawyer friend.

Well, Clevenger tried to get snarky back. Asking if I didn't know Wright was the defense attorney and not the judge. I replied:
Since Brains and I are estranged, I'll double down on saying I don't get what he sees in Clevenger. His newest lawsuit, non-Seth Rich division, did turn up John Whitmire's name, but on the third amended filing of a suit that's what, three years old, and the Whitmire part is salaciousness, but nothing more.

As I've said before in calling Clevenger Joey Dauben with a law degree, he's right about half of what he has blogged about in central Texas. But, half of that, like the Whitmire stuff, is blind hogs and acorns. And the higher the stage, the fewer the acorns he finds.

Per others, it's a "travesty" indeed. And shock me that Falls County DA Jody Gilliam and the word "travesty" would be in the same story.

I remember when I first heard about his arrest that I didn't originally believe it. Gonzalez was quiet, straightforward, older and seemingly upright. Guess we were fooled, at least in part.

That said, to the degree those elements of his personality are true, they don't justify the sentence. Gonzalez abused official authority (and apparently wasn't even charged for that). He did so with a vulnerable alleged illegal immigrant, a person who is also a fellow Hispanic.

And, while we're here, the stench that envelops Scaman officially belongs to the Falls County Republican Party, too. His TABC firing meant he was ethically challenged when he pulled out of the sheriff's race in 2012 and the party knew that in 2016.


BUT! Because a bunch of wingnut Republicans think every small county political office has to be politicized, and because it apparently couldn't get a better challenger to Ben Kirk (who needed to go, anyway, Falls County Democrats), it ran this craptacular hack. This is why the Texas Legislature, in one of its small bits of enlightenment, got rid of straight-ticket voting.


He probably doesn't want to admit the past connection while he aims at higher-level state politicos and, even more, spends time being a Seth Rich conspiracy theorist nutbar.


But, that makes this an additional hypocrisy factor, as Clevenger puts himself out as someone hunting out bad cops and bad lawyers.

Otherwise, I in some ways I'm glad I'm not running the newspaper there. I'd run an editorial column even more blistering, a bunch of butt-hurt local Republicans would probably threaten to cancel subscriptions and Jim Moser would be pissed off.

Otherwise, Marlin and Falls County? You're stuck with Scaman. He's an elected officially independent of the commissioners' court. And, Texas doesn't have recall for state-established partisan elected offices.

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I'm sorry, the above are just the first two-thirds of a tripleheader.

Former Rosebud police chief Quincy Lee officially arrested and charged on a child sexual assault allegation. That's out of McLennan County and tops his old Falls County issues.

4 comments:

Carla Holland Strange said...

You don't know the half of the corruption in Marlin Texas and Falls County. Google nonprofit Falls County pull up their tax records and you'll see to all of those fake nonprofits are reporting zero. Then Google The Carter Foundation School I rather the Coach Carter then go to visit that school is collecting donations and see that it is a run-down empty Elementary School. Look into Farm the falls animal CountyRescue Mission it was run by the mayor tons of money was collected and they save no animals. Then look at the evidence room break in the evidence room was broken a long time before that young cop did it. If you would like a lot more evidence hardcore on that town and it's public officials email me

Gadfly said...

The Coach Carter stuff was a ... nonentity when I was there several years ago. I don't know that there's anything criminal, but if they are collecting money still and doing nothing, that's at least ethical. I think the animal rescue place faded away when the guy who owned the Ford house sold it and he and his wife moved to Waco.

The Marlin PD break room?

Well, that was problematic, as were other things in the department, with the late chief Allen.

Unknown said...

I am caught up in this corruption. Park Ranger Mike Ferguson is taking property in Falls County. He put a lock on my gate then Falls County Sheriff broke into my house and arrested my wife. This happened yesterday about 2:00 p.m. Saturday 2/29/2020

Anonymous said...

The Marlin Democrat ran a story about the girl who filed charges against the Sheriff. They forgot to mention Sheriff Scaman wrote her, Boger, a two page letter of astounding recommendation before she left and why would he do that if he truly thought she was "impersonating an officer". He knew her ex boyfriend hacked her account in an attempt to get her fired. She had reported it herself to him. Anyone can pretend to be you on social media. Nothing in Falls County makes any since. Corruption runs rapid there. The residents can not trust the law enforcement there. They steal land and steal deceased folks belongings before families are ever even notified of their deaths. Scaman was invited to a Republican Sheriff's ball in Washington a while back. It is a hard life for folks there. I am Republican but would never vote for Scaman. He is Just to shady of a character. Just saying.