Liberty County is in the national spotlight this summer as the place where 19 defendants (ranging in age from midteens to almost 30 years) have been charged with the gang rape of an 11 year old girl in Cleveland, Texas, mobile home - some of which was caught on video.It's a case that is dividing the Cleveland community as well as the child's family, as the girl has been removed from her parents' care and placed in Texas foster care for the time being.
Prosecutor in Cleveland Gang Rape Case Is Arrested
Needless to say, this Cleveland Gang Rape case is important from many different perspectives and its prosecution - you would think - would be the cream of the crop putting on the best case that the State of Texas can assert. Right?
Think again. This week, one of the prosecutors on that Cleveland Gang Rape case was arrested and is facing charges as a defendant of (1) Tampering With a Witness, (2) Terroristic Threats and (3) Deadly Conduct.
That's right: the state's attorney has been accused of three pretty serious crimes while he's assigned to the big Gang Rape case. (That's his mugshot at the top.)
Liberty County Assistant District Attorney Joe Warren surrendered to the Liberty County Sheriff's Office last week, and was quickly released on a personal recognizance bond by the local judge. The Sheriff's Office is refusing to comment on the case so far, and little is known for sure about the events that led to the ADA's arrest.
It is known that the Sheriff's Office is the authority handling the investigation -- not a grand jury, not the Texas Rangers or the FBI -- and that Liberty County District Attorney Mike Little has told the media this is strange -- the ADA's case is getting special treatment (it's legal for the Sheriff's Office to run the ball in the investigation, this usually doesn't happen, though).
Joe Warren is still on the job, too: despite being a state district attorney who has been arrested on allegations of committing these crimes he has not been removed from his position and presumably is at work today (as this post is being typed), working on the Cleveland Gang Rape case.
Reports are ADA Threatened to Shoot Pit Bulls that Entered His Backyard and Killed His Pet
So what happened? There are some media reports out there and they are reporting that ADA Warren had a pet dog (a boxer-mix) who were killed by his neighbor's pit bulls after the pit bulls dug a hole under the fence to gain access into Warren's back yard so they could attack his pets.
Warren responded, according to these reports, by threatening his neighbor that he would shoot the pit bulls in order to protect his pets. Apparently, the neighbor called the cops and filed a complaint.