The Aiyer Paper Trail

After first breaking the story on Saturday night, a few people have been interested in exactly how the prosecutors arrived at their charge against HCC Board Trustee Jay Aiyer.  Below, I have typed out District Attorney's Summary of Facts that's filed with the Court.  Keep in mind, this is the prosecutor's point of view, and Aiyer's team will no doubt have issues with some of what's written in court documents.  But for those of you who like to read, or who just want to figure out the case for yourself, here you go:

... On Jan. 20th, 2005, Jay Aiyer went to HCCS at 3100 Main to file his campaign finance report pertaining to his position as trustee at HCCS... Afterward, an open record request for Aiyer's CFR was filed with HCC. Subsequently, Jay Aiyer learned that his CFR had been improperly filled out and did not list the detail of his expenditures as required by statute.  Shortly before 2/15/06, Jay Aiyer went to Dr. Doretha Eason's office and removed a copy of schedule F from his CFR.  On 2/14/05, Aiyer went to the office of Iona Cha and removed a copy of his original CFR from a file she had kept along with an open records request.  On 3/30/2005, Mr. Aiyer went to the HCCS general counsel, Miles LeBlanc, at 3100 Man and asked to review the original CFR filing documents.  Aiyer also asked Miles LeBlanc for a staple puller and stapler.  Aiyer sat at a table in Mr. LeBlanc's office and reviewed the documents.  At one, Mr. Aiyer was heard taking staples out of the documents and re-stapling them.  Mr. Aiyer had brought documents with him and had told Mr. LeBlanc that he wanted to review the original files.  After this occurred, it was learned that the original schedule F filed by Mr. Aiyer had disappeared from the official files kept by Mr. LeBlanc.  However, copies of this document had already been made and sent to two different individuals who had requested the copies with open record requests.  On April 18th, 2005, Jay Aiyer was notified that a complaint had been filed against him regarding this with the Texas Ethics Commission. Mr. Aiyer was interviewed by HCDA Public Integrity on 11/15/06 and confronted with this information.  Mr. Aiyer has told three different stories about when and how he came to file his original schedule F campaign finance report.  When confronted with these inconsistencies, Mr. Aiyer came just short of admitting he had stolen the original Schedule F and substituted a more properly filled out one.  When asked to tell the truth about what he did, and pointing out what evidences pointed to his tampering with the records, he stated that if he did admit to doing this, it could mean his losing too much.

Comments

[Royko]

Gee,

Liberal Democrats tampering with documents is no more unusual than having the dead vote "straight ticket" early and often.

Did he stuff the documents in his socks like Sandy "Burglar?"

[Sandy Berger]

Sorry you got caught carrying out papers on tape.

Those are hard to hide

Believe me.

[David Ross]

As embarrassing as the Aiyer affair may be for Houston Community College, the harm to HCC from this matter can't approach the damage it is suffering from another scandal, one which has nothing to do with our trustees.

Last week, with no warning or any indication that he was thinking of doing so, Governor Perry vetoed half of the state contribution to benefits for community college employees. This unjustifiable action, which will cost HCC over $10 million over the next two years, flies in the face of the stated Texas commitment to supporting higher education, as well as Governor Perry's intention to provide tax relief and to keep college tuitoion manageable (since this shortfall will have to be made up from increased taxes or tuition).

Interestingly, the budget that Governor Perry submitted in January included full funding for community college benefits. Educators and legislators, Democratic and Republican alike, are scratching their heads over this erratic behavior by the governor.