The Ellis County Observer was the first to break news of the arrest of Midlothian Councilman Jason G. Kyle (via my Twitter account and Facebook.)
The news was sent to me via text message from Cindy Kelly, who overheard the commotion over a police scanner. I then sent a text message to WFAA-TV Channel 8′s Craig Civale and Fox 4′s Brandon Todd. A few short minutes later, Todd responds with the confirmation from Midlothian City Hall that indeed, the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office had arrested Midlothian’s councilman (before, we figured it might be a coinicidental same-name) for indecency with a child by contact.
From what we know now, Kyle, a lawyer, (who defeated Constitutional conservative Ken Chambers in May) was indicted last week — even after the teenage girl (reportedly 13) recanted her story. Defense lawyers say this indictment-after-the-recantment spells trouble for Kyle, at least on a perception issue…because there must be more evidence at play here. The city council last night reportedly recognized Kyle for his service. It’s looking very, very apparent that I need to obtain the entire list of indictments for publication, because I cannot trust anyone or any paper to really publish anything…I’ll just have to do it all myself. Had I caught on to the indictments, I would have blared the whistle last week.
We will hold the benefit of the doubt though on anyone prominent or not-so-prominent. As is my policy, anyone who wants a forum for issuing statements and “their” side of the story has full access to this entire site for doing such.(very, very rarely is that ever acted upon)
So now we wait to see if this case goes to trial, and, if Jason Kyle resigns. Even if it’s untrue, having this cloud over a sitting councilman could not be a good thing to have while Midlothian just shelled out gobs of money in new promotional and marketing stuff.
Former Councilman Ken Chambers, who was defeated by Kyle on May 8, issued this statement today:
“If Mr. Kyle is not guilty, we need to pray for justice and to clear his good name. If he is guilty, then he must be prosecuted.”
Indictments of ham sandwiches are routine, as they say. Indictments of lawyers in Ellis County are becoming more common too. First there was James Leonard, the Waxahachie lawyer given 10 years probation for allegedly molesting two girls under the age of 14. He has since fled to El Salvador, which a extradition warrant is on file awaiting justice in that case. Then Todd Phillippi, as of today, was given some great news that a visiting judge rejected the state bar’s request to have his law license suspended after the grand jury issued several indictments on him.
