Readers of Bloghouston and Houblog will know that the issue of bonuses and overtime pay for City of Houston employees has been pretty big lately. Defenders of the massive amount of overtime paid to some HPD officers point to a DWI trial system that forces the officers to report to courts multiple times for a single case, and blame the lawyers for constant resets. Now the lawyers have fired back, claiming that some members of the HPD DWI task force are manipulating evidicence in order to guarantee trials that will give them lots of overtime.

“Once the officers realized the more arrests they made, the more money they made, the system became corrupted and perverted,” defense attorney Sam Adamo said.

Adamo said he has represented clients who have walked the line for the sobriety test while some task force officers turn their microphone one and off.

Several lawyers said the microphones are being turned off with drivers who look like they have money to guarantee longer trials.

“If it’s a stumbling, falling-down drunk, that man’s going to plead guilty and that officer’s never going to make any money on that case. If it’s a close call, that officer’s going to be down at the courthouse, sleeping for a couple of days getting time and a half,” Adamo said.

One officer in particular was singled out by the Ch. 2 Troubleshooters’ investigation: Robert Gonzales of the DWI Task Force.

Houston Police Department’s DWI Task Force officer Robert Gonzales testified that the woman was slurring her speech in the tape, but all jurors heard was silence.

The woman’s lawyer said that was likely no accident. “He knew a jury would never be able to hear that and that was the crux of our case,” defense attorney Stephen Halpert said. The woman was cleared of all charges, but not before Gonzales racked up some serious overtime money for her trial, the Troubleshooters reported. “DWI is big business, especially for the Houston Police Department task force officers,” Halpert said.

The Troubleshooters’ five-month investigation found the same dead silence on videotape after videotape, many from officer Gonzales. And juries are tossing out case after case.

“I look at it very similar to the crime lab problems. There seems to be a pattern of one, maybe several officers that are failing to preserve evidence over a long period of time and no one higher up seems to know this is going on,” Halpert said.

If you listen carefully on the first driver the Troubleshooters showed, you could tell Gonzales decided when to flip the switch on the microphone he’s wearing.

And officer Gonzales has been one of the “six figure” officers, racking up massive overtime.

Court overtime has pushed numerous DWI task force officers into six-figure incomes, including Gonzales. His payroll records showed his overtime has topped his mid-50s salary since 2002.

(He may earn lots, but on the other hand, taxpayers can be happy he hasn’t gotten a strange pay increase, like one retiring officer did a few years ago.)

Naturally, HPD disagrees with the lawyers contention:

The Troubleshooters could not reach Gonzales for comment, but his supervisor, Sgt. Edward Robinson, told the station off-camera that the notion of switching off microphones to rack up overtime is “a bunch of bull.”

He said it’s a simple equipment failure issue that has nothing to do with overtime. The original dashboard cameras were donated by a Houston business. When problems started cropping up, HPD said it did not have the money to repair them for a while. The task force is now using different, newer cameras with no problems reported.

That would be the Edward Robinson who is also of the $100k club:

Sgt. Edward Robinson, a 21-year veteran who supervises members of the DWI Task Force and made $76,055 in overtime, increasing his total pay to $161,723.
In 2005, Calvillo, Alaniz, Robinson and Lindsey each earned more than the salaries of the city attorney, chief information officer and public health director, among other top city officials. Only about 80 civilian employees get more than $100,000 in annual pay, while 176 inside HPD topped six figures last year.

So who’s telling the truth here? Are officers playing games to maximize their overtime, or are lawyers using resets to exhaust the resources of the court system and get clients off the hook? Considering that we’re talking about self interest and money, it’s probable that both are true. As long as we’re in sweeps month, various TV stations will report bits and pieces of the hype story, and it will be up to us to put them together with the proper context and try to make sense of it all. That’s what bloggers do. . .

Well, some of us do, anyway (Warning, link NSFW!!!!). When we’re not talking about anime.