Houston City Controller Sells Out Forgery Victims; Testifies As Character Witness On Behalf Of 5-Time Felon Prosecuted For Stealing 23 Area Properties

In Houston, Texas, the Houston Chronicle reports:

• City Controller Ron Green, Houston's top elected money manager and self-described watchdog, is seeking leniency for a five-time convicted felon and contractor who masterminded an elaborate real estate and forgery scam targeting the city's historically African-American neighborhoods.
  
  Green is asking a judge for probation for his friend and former next-door neighbor Dwayne K. Jordon, a rogue developer who pleaded guilty to felony theft. According to indictments, Jordon pilfered 23 Houston properties from different owners and then duped unsuspecting buyers into purchasing homes built on stolen ground.
  
  The ex-con contractor and the city controller have known each other about five years, the same period, according to a Houston Chronicle review of dozens of court records and related real estate documents, that Jordon carried out the series of land thefts, mortgage frauds and deed scams.

***

• Victims of the property pilfering say they are stunned to see Green stand up for a man who ripped off people Green was elected to protect.
  
  "It makes my heart hurt and it makes me sick to my stomach," said Darlene Sims, a native Houstonian whose family land was stolen and whose father's fruit and pecan trees were bulldozed in the scam.

***

• Sims, whose family land was taken by Jordon, says she once admired Green as a public servant but won't support him again. Sims doesn't understand why the city controller believes Jordon will repay his victims. A deadbeat dad and con man, Jordon has never paid the Sims family any of the $225,000 a jury awarded them after finding that his company, E. Jordon Inc., stole their land by forging Darlene Sims' dead parents' signatures on a fake deed, according to court records.
  
  "He didn't pay and he has no regard for the families he has harmed," Sims said.

For the story, see Houston city controller seeks leniency for con man.

In a related story, see Ethics issues arise in rulings by justice of the peace (City controller's wife ordered evictions despite her connections to felon).