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A former assistant attorney general alleges in a whistleblower suit filed May 18 that the Texas Office of the Attorney General fired her in 2008 for reporting that two OAG attorneys in the Dallas child support office tried "to suborn perjured testimony" from her about a Dallas judge.
Ginger Weatherspoon, who worked in the OAG's child support division from July 2006 until November 2008, alleges in her original petition in Weatherspoon v. Office of the Attorney General of Texas that in February 2008, James Jones and Harry Monck, then-senior regional attorneys in the Dallas child support office, tried to coerce her to sign an affidavit containing "numerous misrepresentations" about a conversation she had had with 254th District Judge David Hanschen. Weatherspoon further alleges in the petition, filed in the 44th District Court in Dallas, that Jones and Monck "confined her in a room against her will" after she refused to sign the affidavit. [See the plaintiff's original petition.]
Jones, who is now in an OAG child support office in Fort Worth, and Monck, who is in the OAG child support office in Plano, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.
Weatherspoon, now a Dallas solo, alleges in the petition that she was terminated because she made a "good faith" report to Paula Crockett, then Weatherspoon's managing attorney, about the alleged efforts by Jones and Monck to force Weatherspoon to sign the affidavit. Crockett, now in a child support office in Fort Worth, also did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
Steve Kardell, Weatherspoon's attorney and a partner in Clouse Dunn Khoshbin in Dallas, says that prior to the alleged attempt to make Weatherspoon sign the affidavit, Hanschen had been at odds with the OAG over the statute of limitations on DNA testing to determine parentage in child support cases.
Weatherspoon says in an interview that Jones had asked her and other attorneys in the Dallas child support office to report any statements Hanschen had made to them about the OAG and its attorneys.
"He called us jack-booted government thugs," Weatherspoon says of Hanschen. "I don't think he meant any harm by it." Hanschen did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
Weatherspoon alleges in an interview the OAG had gathered information on Hanschen's statements for a complaint that the OAG planned to file against Hanschen with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Seana Willing, the judicial conduct commission's executive director, says she cannot comment on whether the commission has received a complaint against Hanschen.
Weatherspoon alleges in her petition that on Feb. 1, 2008, in response to Jones' directive for OAG attorneys to report all interactions with Hanschen, she sent an e-mail to Jones about a conversation she had had with Hanschen. Weatherspoon further alleges in the petition that on Feb. 5, 2008, she received an affidavit drafted by another OAG attorney that contained numerous misrepresentations about the facts of her conversation with Hanschen.
"What was in the affidavit was not truth," Weatherspoon says in an interview. Weatherspoon says the affidavit made it sound like she was taken aback by Hanschen's comments and felt threatened by him, which she wasn't.
In her petition, Weatherspoon makes the following allegations about efforts to force her to sign the affidavit: Jones sent Weatherspoon a Feb. 11, 2008, e-mail ordering her to sign the affidavit by 2 p.m. that day. Weatherspoon requested to make changes in the prepared affidavit, but Jones rejected her request. On Feb. 12, 2008, Jones ordered Weatherspoon to appear at the OAG's administrative office to sign the affidavit and yelled at her when she refused to do so. "During his tirade, he [Jones] shouted that the Attorney General himself, Greg Abbott, was 'waiting on Plaintiff's affidavit.' " Then, Jones ordered Weatherspoon into an adjacent room and told her she could not leave until she completed the statement against Hanschen. Weatherspoon prepared a type-written statement that did not contain allegations of judicial misconduct against Hanschen and was allowed to leave. Weatherspoon immediately reported what happened to Crockett and subsequently made reports to other supervisors.
Weatherspoon further alleges in the petition that the OAG terminated her after she failed to respond to a Sept. 18, 2008, e-mail from a supervisor as directed. In an interview, Weatherspoon says she was in court on the day that the supervisor sent the e-mail and was out of the office on medical leave authorized by the OAG on the following day. She says she responded to the supervisor on Sept. 22, 2008, the next day she was in the office.
In her petition, Weatherspoon alleges a cause of action under the Texas Whistleblower Act, Chapter 554 of the state Government Code. She seeks actual damages; compensation for wages, promotions and merit pay increases lost as a result of her termination; and reinstatement.
Jerry Strickland, the OAG's communications director, writes in an e-mail: "Attorneys in our Dallas-area offices expressed concerns about certain judges' courtroom conduct and perceived bias against the Child Support Division and the child support collection process. Our office reviewed the matter but took no further action. The dismissal of this employee is wholly unrelated to any of those incidents and was precipitated by facts separate from anything to do with that review."
Weatherspoon says that when the OAG terminated her on Nov. 10, 2008, she received a piece of paper that said she was being fired for poor customer service. "They have never given me a clear-cut reason why I was fired," she says.
