Travis County

 Legal Battle Won But War Ahead

Victim got a copy of record sought, but a second
lawsuit looms over new public information request

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2017
Part 9 in a Series
Posted Monday August 7, 2017 11:39pm
Updated Tuesday August 8, 2017 9:51am (to link to Settlement Agreement)

>The public information request that gave rise to a lawsuit in which Travis County Attorney David Escamilla sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been withdrawn. And with it the litigation over whether the County Attorney must provide the document at issue, as ordered in the AG’s open records ruling.

>The matter was put to rest when a Settlement Agreement was reached today that allowed the requestor to have an unredacted copy of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) the County Attorney entered into with her abuser.

Escamilla declined to comment until a copy of the Settlement Agreement is filed. The Austin Bulldog filed a public information request for a copy of the Agreement and it was not immediately received. (It will be linked at the bottom of this story when obtained.)“We settled,” Austin attorney Bill Aleshire of Aleshire Law PC, told The Austin Bulldog in a telephone interview late yesterday.

The agreement requires the requestor not to publish or assist anyone in publishing the DPA. “But she may give it to her attorneys, counselor, or therapist. And it can be entered into any official court proceeding,” he said.

>The ability to enter a copy of the DPA into court proceeding is important because the requestor, Tara Coronado, is in a custody dispute with her abuser and former husband over whether one of her four children will be sent to an out-of-state boarding school.

>At the request of her attorney in that dispute, Coronado declined to personally comment on the Settlement Agreement.

One battle won, a war ahead