LRC Blog reports:
The State of Texas stole eighteen years from Anthony Graves. If the despicable people who fraudulently convicted him of murder had their way, the State would have murdered Graves years ago. Charles Sebesta — the corrupt former D.A. who prosecuted Graves — suborned perjury, misrepresented physical evidence, and withheld exculpatory evidence during the capital murder trial. Last February, the Texas Comptroller’s Office denied Graves the $1.4 million to which he was entitled as compensation for being unjustly imprisoned: Through a judge’s “oversight,” the words “actual innocence” didn’t appear in the judicial order authorizing Graves’s release from prison.Only a monopoly could get away with this outrageous behavior.
For all it has done to him, the State is not content to leave Graves alone: The Attorney General’s Office is pilfering $175 from the $3,000 monthly salary he earns as an investigator for the Texas Defenders Service, an organization representing other death penalty defendants. This is supposedly required to satisfy a child support order imposed on Graves while he was in prison — where he wouldn’t have been, of course, if Sebesta and his corrupt little clique hadn’t conspired to frame him for a murder he didn’t commit.
On April 20, Graves was invited to Prairie View A&M University to address an “overflow crowd” concerning his case, reports the Houston Chronicle. The school offered a $250 honorarium to compensate him for his time and travel expenses. That money was never paid: The Attorney General’s Office “garnished” — that is, stole — it before Graves saw a penny.
“The state of Texas tried to kill me for something I didn’t do and now they are trying to get child support out of me,”complained Graves. This is typical behavior from the Texas Attorney General’s Office, which “persisted in prosecuting him for four years after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 2006,” notes the Chronicle.
