{"id":1682147,"date":"2022-10-10T17:36:28","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682147"},"modified":"2022-10-10T17:37:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:37:00","slug":"political-consultant-convicted-of-coercion-in-2020-texas-house-race-da","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/political-consultant-convicted-of-coercion-in-2020-texas-house-race-da\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Consultant Convicted of Coercion in 2020 Texas House Race: DA"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpolitical-consultant-convicted-of-coercion-in-2020-texas-house-race-da%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682147&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A political consultant was convicted of\u00a0coercion for a scheme that was designed to affect the outcome of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-texas\">Texas<\/a> state race during the 2020 election cycle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-harris-county\">Harris County<\/a> officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Democratic consultant Damien Jones, 38, of Houston, was convicted of\u00a0coercion of a public servant for sending\u00a0anonymous threatening text messages to\u00a0then-State Rep. Gina Calanni,\u00a0Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. Those messages, Ogg said, were designed to get Calanni to resign and not run for reelection in\u00a0District 132.<\/p>\n<p>He made those threats just days before the 2020 election filing deadline, Ogg added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt a time when threats against public servants are at an all-time high, it is critical to hold accountable those who would try to subvert the will of the people by coercing a state representative into dropping out of an election,\u201d Ogg <a href=\"https:\/\/abc13.com\/damien-jones-convicted-harris-county-coercion-case-2020-tx-house-of-representatives-election-district-attorney-kim-ogg\/12303643\/\">told<\/a> local media outlet ABC13. \u201cWe thank the jurors for their service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones had served as a regional political director for former Rep. Beto O\u2019Rourke\u2019s (D-Texas) failed bid for the U.S. Senate. He also worked with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Houston Chronicle reported.<\/p>\n<p>Jones, who was indicted in late 2020, was convicted of a Class A misdemeanor and faces up to one year in the\u00a0Harris County Jail and up to a $4,000 fine. He also received one year of probation.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, his attorney,\u00a0Oliver Jason Brown, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/news\/houston-texas\/crime\/article\/Houston-political-consultant-convicted-of-trying-17494817.php\">suggested<\/a> to the Chronicle that Jones\u2019s constitutional rights were violated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a First Amendment case,\u201d Brown said. \u201cPeople need to take caution, that based off of conviction and how the law is written, you could theoretically charge anyone who threatens to bring hatred, contempt or embarrassment on a public official. That\u2019s how the law is written. It\u2019s written incorrectly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The message to\u00a0Calanni was actually \u201ca heads up,\u201d Brown added. \u201cShe was getting a heads up that was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A political consultant was convicted of\u00a0coercion for a scheme that was designed to affect the outcome of a Texas state race during the 2020 election cycle, Harris County officials said. Democratic consultant Damien Jones, 38, of Houston, was convicted of\u00a0coercion of a public servant for sending\u00a0anonymous threatening text messages to\u00a0then-State Rep. Gina Calanni,\u00a0Harris County District [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}