Mealer Says She’s A Crime Fighter But Her Friends Keep Getting Accused Of Breaking The Law

Alexandra del Moral Mealer, the Republican candidate for Harris County Judge, has positioned herself as a crime fighter that will “restore ethics and bring back good governance” in Harris County. But that promise appears to be at odds with the alleged law-breaking behavior of the people who Mealer has used to fund her campaign and bolster her law enforcement bona fides.

Last week, Brian Harris, the chief deputy for the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable’s office, was arrested in an undercover prostitution sting led by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance. Harris even drove his county squad car to a hotel to allegedly pay for sex. This isn’t the first time Harris has been accused of using his official government property for inappropriate ends. Earlier this year, he used his county laptop to invite “the Houston police officers union, the “Harris County Deputy Association,” and “Crime Stoppers” to a meeting hosted by his boss, Constable Ted Heap (himself infamous for dressing in Blackface), during the workday on government property to discuss the use of “PAC monies supporting those who support the mission of THE WATCH (a group focused on “crime issues”).

Brian Harris’s arrest comes after our reporting earlier this month that Mealer accepted  a $25,000 donation from James “Doug” Pitcock, the CEO and sole shareholder of Williams Brothers Construction. Pitcock killed a woman—and injured her young son—while recklessly operating a boat. He paid $750,000 to settle the case. Pitcock played a direct role in a decades-long fraud scheme in which Williams Brothers Construction got federal highway dollars by pretending puppet companies they created were minority subcontractors. As the U.S. Department of Justice explained, the company paid $3,000,000 to “to settle False Claims Act and administrative claims involving the illegal exercise of control over two concrete-supply companies…” In a separate case, a Harris County Grand Jury indicted Williams Brothers Construction on claims of illegally dumping “caustic” toxic materials, including both concrete sludge and oil waste, into Houston waterways. The company shelled out $500,000 in settlement dollars in a deal with the Harris County District Attorney that allowed it to avoid felony prosecution.