Two conservative Houston firebrands have joined together in a lawsuit accusing former District Attorney Kim Ogg of using her former office to target political opponents.
Blogger Aubrey Taylor, the man once charged with injuring late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s campaign manager, and Steven Hotze, the founder of the Liberty Center for God and Country and other conservative organizations, filed a lawsuit last week in a Houston federal court.
The lawsuit accuses Ogg, former First Assistant District Attorney Vivian King and Gerald Womack, the campaign manager, of participating in conspiracies to violate their constitutional rights.
Half of the lawsuit repeats Hotze’s earlier claims from a suit filed in January, alleging that Ogg’s political motivations spurred charges against him over accusations he planned a 2020 attack on an air-conditioner repairman who was wrongly suspected of moving illegal ballots. It also adds accusations from Taylor, who in 2023 was indicted on an injury-to-an-elderly-person charge over an October 2023 confrontation with Womack.
Hotze withdrew the earlier lawsuit to file the new one alongside Taylor. Taylor had previously sued Womack for assault in a Harris County court. That case was dismissed earlier this year, according to court records.
Ogg and Womack declined to comment for this story.
Taylor and Hotze claim that their complaints against Ogg are buoyed by her successor’s decision to drop the criminal cases against them.
“When the DA’s office uses our taxpayer dollars to go after someone because of their political views or even their First Amendment speech, that is, you know, a weaponization of the office that is contrary to everything most folks in this county believe,” said Jared Woodfill, who is representing both men.
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The lawsuit claims evidence that could have exonerated Taylor was destroyed or lost, and that Ogg’s office pushed for charges to be filed despite reservations from police investigators and line prosecutors.
During a hearing in Taylor’s criminal case, a former intake prosecutor, Michael Abner, testified that he initially declined charges against Taylor and afterward received a call from King, who said she disagreed with his decision.
“I don’t think she said I need to indict the charge,” Abner testified, according to a transcript. “She just disagreed and I believe said something along the lines of I need to look into this further.”
An HPD detective testified that Womack refused to immediately hand over surveillance video to police and that the object that Taylor was hit with, a metal trophy, went missing from Womack’s building after the confrontation.
Taylor’s attorney asked a judge to find there was prosecutorial misconduct in the criminal case. However, the charges were dismissed before Judge Aaron Burdette made any rulings.
I think we can all agree that the previous regime had issues, and one of them was in their intake process. There’s a big gulf between incompetence and maliciousness, however. I think the plaintiffs will find it challenging to prove the latter. There’s a hearing scheduled for December, I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more then.