13 Investigates obtained search warrants detailing texts and emails between top Harris County staff who investigators say gave one vendor information before a bid for a contract was public.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas -- More than 50 pages of court documents detail allegations into what appears to be a months-long effort by Harris County leaders to award a nearly $11 million COVID-19 outreach contract to a particular vendor.
Now, court documents suggest investigators are piecing together a process that didn't follow those rules and may have given unfair advantages to the eventual winner, a small Houston-based firm called Elevate Strategies. In November 2021, the Harris County district attorney demanded documents from multiple county offices examining how Elevate was selected.In a statement responding to the public release of the search warrants on Friday, an attorney for Hidalgo said,"this misleading storyline is the latest act of political theater from a politically motivated investigation."
"The Judge has the strictest ethical guidelines ever imposed in Harris County and that's been ironclad from day one," Hidalgo's attorney said in a statement last week."This is nothing but political theater since the devices would have been provided on request. What's missing is any shred of evidence, but what's in abundance is politics."
The search warrant indicates that once the bid was open to the public, a text message between two top Hidalgo staffers on April 20, 2021, says they"need to slam the door shut" on UT Health Science Center at Houston, one of Pereyra's competitors who also submit a bid for the outreach contract. Elevate was awarded the contract in June 2021.
Marla Poirot, attorney for Alex Triantaphyllis, told 13 Investigates that"the accusations against my client are baseless." Then, at 8:03 p.m. that same day, Hidalgo texts Triantaphyllis and her then-chief of staff Joe Madden that she"took a stab at the scope document in the census doc. What I don't know is whether these folks will be in charge of the data or whether Felicity can do the disparities data too - whether these folks will be in charge of operational advice, for example whether we need to have roving teams or something like that.
"Although Elevate Strategies LLC received the second highest score, they were considered the best proposal due to their firm understanding of the requirements and the provision of strong overall submission," according to a review cited in the search warrant. It says that although UT Health Science Center at Houston received the highest score"community outreach work they have provided for other projects such as Harris SAVES has not shown to be successful.
Dunn told investigators it was the same document used for the proposal, but denied knowing that his colleagues communicated with Pereyra about it prior to it being publicly available.Investigators say that when Dunn, Triantaphyllis and Nader signed agreements saying they compiled with the Purchasing Code of Ethics related to the proposal, they"all three made false statements in a governmental record and committed tampering with a government record," according to the search warrant.
The meeting last summer got heated when Cagle said,"in the Elevate contract, obviously the one-person shop can't handle all of the work that is to be required.""You well know it's not a one-person shop," Hidalgo said.
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