Fort Bend County tax assessor, 2 employees federally indicted

All right, we want to continue this conversation with reporter Sacra Gray. She is live right where the press conference took place. And, Sacra, what were you able to learn? Yeah, so this press conference just wrapped up a few minutes ago, and we were out here at the U.S. Attorney's Office in downtown Houston. Here's what we know so far. So, some breaking news. Elected Fort Bend County tax assessor collector Carmen Patrice Turner and two co-defendants, a deputy clerk and the father of Turner's adult son, have been indicted by a federal grand jury here in Houston. Now, I'm still working to get through that 17-page indictment charges, but what we know so far is that Carmen Patrice Turner is the elected Fort Bend County tax assessor and collector who's been in office since 2021. And then the other charged people are Shamarilyn Regina Fields, who is the deputy tax clerk, and Victor Calvin Ewing, who is the department coordinator and father of Turner's son. So the two primary schemes that were pointed out in today's press conference were that Turner hired staff under official titles like deputy tax clerk, but instructed them to work full time as her personal in-home caregivers, allegedly for her mother in Houston. So these employees were clocking into county systems, allegedly and remotely receiving a full time public salaries and all those benefits while not performing county duties. So again, hey, I'm still working to get through those 17-page documents, so we have a lot to get through. So stay tuned in our next hours as we break all of these charges down. But in the meantime, the photos behind me, those three have been arrested this morning. Two of them, so the two women here, were arrested in Houston. The man, Victor Ewing, was arrested over in Chicago. So we'll keep you updated with the latest. Stay tuned. All right. Thank you so much, Sakura. And I did hear when they were, I saw a reporter asking about how much taxpayer money, you know, was involved here. They didn't want to give a number, but said maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we're talking some pretty serious charges here. Yeah. And I can imagine those who live in Fort Bend County want to know where their tax dollars are going, what it's paying for. So again, if there is anything that has to do with defrauding the residents in Fort Bend County, of course, residents have their money and their lives at stake here. All right. Thank you so much, Sakura Gray. We are awaiting the latest there. Thank you so much for joining us.