Posted on 01/12/2008 10:35:21 AM PST by trumandogz
A growing chorus of black leaders on Friday called for besieged Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to step down immediately in response to court documents that reveal he used government computers to send and receive racist and sexually explicit e-mails.
The 730 e-mails released Tuesday also show Rosenthal strategized with political consultants and colleagues about his re-election campaign on his county e-mail account, prompting the Texas Attorney General's Office to launch an investigation this week.
As state officials determine whether Rosenthal violated state campaign laws, a coalition of black ministers and other community leaders on Friday called for him to step down immediately, charging the top prosecutor misled them. At least one called for a federal probe of the entire district attorney's office.
They pointed to a racially charged photograph found in Rosenthal's e-mails depicting a black man sprawled out on a sidewalk next to large slices of watermelon, a cup of soda and a chicken bucket. The title of the e-mail: Fatal Overdose. It's unclear how the image arrived in Rosenthal's file.
"We prayed with him; we have been working with him — I feel jilted," said Robert Jefferson, pastor of Cullen Missionary Baptist Church, who is a member of the Houston Ministers Against Crime. "He was smiling with us in one place and stabbing us in our backs in another."
A larger problem?
Another e-mail raising eyebrows among black leaders is a joke received and forwarded by Rosenthal that compares President Bill Clinton to a black man. The e-mail says Clinton played the saxophone, smoked marijuana and receives a check from the government each month.
Houston City Councilwoman Jolanda "Jo" Jones, a criminal defense lawyer, said the e-mails confirmed what she and others have suspected about the DA's office for years.
"It's systemic, the racism there," Jones said.
She said Rosenthal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent if he violated laws by using county computers to organize a re-election campaign.
Ministers held a news conference Friday at the New Guide Missionary Baptist Church on Dennis Street and questioned whether Rosenthal's e-mails speak to a larger problem in the prosecutor's office.
"It disturbed me so much, I didn't know what to do," Jefferson said.
"How deep does this racism go? How many black kids have been locked up while they laugh at us?"
The Rev. William A. Lawson, pastor emeritus of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, agreed.
"The overpopulation of our jails and prisons is in some cases due to the way they were prosecuted," Lawson said. "And he has a negative attitude toward minorities, which makes it easier to prosecute blacks and Latinos."
Lawson said Rosenthal "needs to step down" and added that he wasn't surprised.
"I've dealt with Chuck Rosenthal, and I know him to be a hard-shelled kind of person. It seems that behind that hard shell is a fairly dirty mind," Lawson said.
Call for FBI probe
On Thursday, members of the Houston Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also called for Rosenthal's resignation. "This is a position of trust, and people have to believe in the person who is the DA in this county," said James Douglas, legal counsel for the NAACP Houston chapter.
"His own party has said he doesn't have the integrity to serve in that office, and our position is if he's not trustworthy to be re-elected this year, why does he have the integrity to stay in office now?"
Community activist Quanell X announced plans for a rally outside the county courthouse on Thursday and called for a special federal prosecutor to investigate the district attorney. He contends Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is a Republican, cannot objectively investigate Rosenthal.
"We're calling for an FBI probe into the entire district attorney's office," Quanell X said. "We want to make sure no politics is played in this — we don't want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party investigating this case."
Allegations of racism
Rosenthal's office sought an indictment against Quanell X for charges of fleeing police in 2004 when he escorted a man suspected of shooting an officer to police headquarters. A jury found the activist guilty, but his conviction was overturned in 2006. The scandal swirling around Rosenthal did not shock many area black residents, said Robert Muhammad, minister and southwest regional representative of the Nation of Islam.
He said he has complained about Rosenthal being a racist for years and cites the case of Josiah Sutton, the first man exonerated in the HPD crime-lab scandal.
Despite Sutton's being pardoned in 2003, Rosenthal refused to write a letter to the state saying Sutton was innocent, a formality required so that Sutton could receive reparations for being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.
"This is a man who dragged his feet when it was proven that Josiah Sutton was innocent," Muhammad said.
"People lost their freedom because of this man; people lost their reputation because of this man."
When asked Friday about the calls from the black community for his resignation, Rosenthal replied: "Good — thank you. Have a good day," and hung up the phone.
Erm... well, as much as I dislike the guy, “recieving sexually explicit emails” shouldn’t be, considering the content and direction of most of the unsolicited spam I get.
Sending them, yes, that’s a problem. Just receiving them, no.
Do you typically forward those e-mails to your coworkers?
Get this guy out. He is sending e-mail joking around instead of working. We are no longer in the business of putting up with this type of silliness. I imagine he is a Democrat which makes me even more thrilled to do away with another. I hope that every paid congressman, senator, or state elected employee who does this type of kindergarten activity get shown the door either by voters or those incharge.
Heck no - but that comes under “sending”, which is a no-no.
The accusation should be only “sending” not “sending and receiving”.
I was wondering why the uproar. Rosenthal is a republican.
I doubt that you would forward that email.
I don't even have friends that would send me that type of email.
I get worse as spam all the time.
He should be disciplined or fired for *sending*, but receiving is not a crime or offense, IMHO.
Dang it. It figures. Republicans have been misbehaving lately. lol. All about sex too. What gives?
I liked and supported Rosenthal before all this came out, as did many others I know - but he’s been acting very strange about this.
First he said he wouldn’t resign, then when local GOP told him he should, he said he would.
At that point, one of the 200 ADAs - but one who has gotten a lot of good press recently and who is a hoot to watch - Kelly Siegler, was pressed into service to run for Rosenthal’s office and she very reluctantly accepted.
She was one of the recipients of some of his forwarded emails and she was funny, saying her own hubby cusses like a sailor and partakes in some naughty jokes - BUT, he is self-employed and that’s on his own computer.
She didn’t want to run for election, but said she would. That was a little over a week ago, when the deadline was on for her to toss her hat in. Then Rosenthal changed his mind, once again, and she was put in the position of running against her boss.
So, now the media is out to get her, on top of the glee with which they are pursuing Rosenthal. Yesterday, they said Kelly called some Lakewood Church members “screwballs and nuts.” Ha ha, some of them are! (Joel Osteen’s church.)
What she was referring to was when she was trying to seat a death penalty jury and she was doing voir dire, she knew Lakewood Church people wouldn’t qualify, since most are opposed.
She’s a tough cookie, but has something like 200 convictions under her belt in 21 years there - I think all of it in the Harris Co DA’s office (not sure).
She’s the one featured last week on Dateline or maybe 48 Hours Mystery, one of those, which highlighted her prosecution of the woman named Wright who stabbed her husband almost 200 times. Siegler brought in the Wrights’ bed from their bedroom and then got on top of one of her other attys from her team and started pretending to stab him over and over and over again, counting up the number to show how long it took and how brutal it was.
That's right!
Anyone forwarding e-mail jokes at work should be fired immediately!
</sarc>
The upside of this is, Joe Horn should be OK now that “Quannell X” is off grinding some other ax...
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