It takes some doing to hook even a smidgen of sympathy to towing companies, especially unpopular among those North Texas drivers whose vehicles have been taken. But such is the depth of Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins’ loss of public trust.
United Tows insists it did everything by the book in 2013 when it hauled a Porsche Boxster from the county courthouse garage roof, per its contract. Photos indicate the 2001 Boxster had been shamefully neglected and used as a dust canvas by passers-by.
The towing company tried to find the owner before selling the car at auction. As it happens, that owner was the Dallas County district attorney’s office, a fact apparently hidden behind a shell company and post office box. The Boxster’s stated purpose was undercover car for drug stings.
Robert Jenkins, a lawyer for United Tows, says Watkins’ prosecutor and investigator went straight to abuse of authority to get the Porsche back, threatening towing company owners with a grand jury investigation and criminal charges if they didn’t give up the Boxster.
Ultimately, Watkins’ people blinked and reached into the controversial forfeiture fund for the $3,600 needed to reclaim their Porsche, along with repairs.
So, benefit of the doubt, is it even plausible that a DA’s office would threaten to use a grand jury to intimidate a towing company? Yes, it is, when you remember that Watkins’ office has this very track record.
In 2010, Dallas County Commissioner Maurine Dickey accused Watkins of abuse of power and official oppression after he tried to intimidate her over — seriously — a vegetable and butterfly garden at her district headquarters. That was an escalation of their actual dispute, Dickey’s displeasure with Watkins’ reluctance to investigate county constables (and fellow Democrats).
More recently, Watkins used the grand jury threat on as many as three Democratic judges, stemming from his refusal to testify in a mortgage fraud beef.
These were elected officials. What chance would a humble towing company stand?
Forfeiture funds are supposedly reserved for law enforcement purposes. In Watkins’ reasoning, this includes buying back a legally towed Porsche; spending $50,000 to settle a car wreck he caused by rear-ending another driver while reading his phone; and another $1,250 to sweep his offices for listening devices, reason still secret.
The car crash settlement included a provision for a $40,500 penalty paid to Watkins himself, not the forfeiture fund, if the other driver discussed it publicly. Does hush money have an actual law enforcement purpose? And if you want forfeiture fund details, you have to take Watkins to court, as this newspaper has.
Our recommendation of Republican Susan Hawk over Watkins in the Nov. 4 election was based, in large part, on the two-term incumbent’s loss of public trust. This nonsense with a towed Boxster is just one more brick in that wall.
What he said
“We felt if we had told them, ‘OK just take your car back, please don’t take us to the grand jury,’ that would be admitting in some ways that we had done something wrong or hadn’t followed the letter of the law, and we didn’t do any of that. It was their fault that the car got towed [and] their fault they didn’t know where it was.”
Robert Jenkins, attorney for United Tows,
which ran afoul of District Attorney Craig Watkins’
office by towing a Porsche Boxster
used for drug stings
