“Taxpayers Footing Questionable Attorney Bills”

KXAN-TV 
July 28, 2015

A KXAN Investigation explored whether some court-appointed attorneys are billing taxpayers for work they didn’t do. Last year, the county paid out $7.2 million to fund the indigent defense system. This investigation spanned three months of sifting through payment vouchers and jail logs for multiple courts and attorneys. It also involved tracking down and communicating with several former clients – now inmates – of one particular attorney, including a trip to a state prison in the Texas Panhandle. KXAN discovered discrepancies between how much time that attorney said he met with those clients and how much time he submitted to the county for payment. Because of what we uncovered, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office says it has launched a criminal investigation into the entire court-appointed attorney system, and it has recently launched a new system to allow for jail visits to be directly verified with the county sheriff’s office.

LINK to story online

Submitted by Josh Hinkle.