Exec pleads guilty to lying to Congress
He withheld who paid for lawmakers’ trip to Azerbaijan
WASHINGTON — The former president of a Houston-based nonprofit pleaded guilty Monday to lying to Congress about a 2013 trip to Azerbaijan of 10 U.S. lawmakers, including four House members from Texas, whose expenses were secretly funded by the Azerbaijan government’s oil company.
Kemal Oksuz, aka “Kevin Oksuz,” 49, pleaded guilty to one count of devising a scheme to conceal material facts from the U.S. House Ethics Committee investigating questions that had been raised in a Houston Chronicle account of the lavish, all-expenses-paid trip to Baku, the Caspian Sea capital of Azerbaijan.
The House panel eventually exonerated all 10 U.S. lawmakers who took the trip, saying they had been misled about its true sponsors and that they didn’t “knowingly” break any law or House rules.
Among those Oksuz allegedly misled about the trip were Houston Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee and Ruben Hinojosa, a border district Democrat who has since retired from Congress.
Two Houston-area Republicans also made the government-funded trip: U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, who is retiring next month, and former Congressman Steve Stockman, who was sentenced last month to a 10year prison term in an unrelated fraud case.
All but Stockman, who could
icle.
The manner Dolan used to encourage more applicants for the superintendent’s position resulted in a cease-and-desist letter from the Katy ISD general counsel.
“You are not an employee of Katy ISD, and the district has not approved you or your company as a vendor which has the authority to speak or collect information for Katy ISD,” according to the Dec. 5 letter from Justin Graham, the district’s general counsel.
District officials said Dolan — who has his own ambitions to serve on the Katy ISD board — essentially cut and pasted the Katy ISD superintendent’s job posting and added it to his Katy ISD-focused website, abetterlegacy.com. The letter claims the advertisements include false and misleading information not consistent with the district’s policies.
“You indicate that you are authorized to accept résumés and applications on behalf of Katy ISD and that interested applicants should contact you directly,” according to the letter from Graham. “The district demands that you cease any action where you are trying to profit from or speak for the District. The district also demands you remove any misleading or false information.”
Dolan acknowledged his “unsolicited offer” to help Katy ISD officials expand the search for a new superintendent wasn’t well received.
“The Board of Trustees have chosen to wait nearly seven months to launch a search to fill a critical position that will now be vacated in less than a month,” Dolan said in a statement. “By avoiding their most critical duty for nearly seven months, the Board of Trustees have now put the district in the position of requiring an acting superintendent to bridge the gap.”
In their cease and desist letter, Katy ISD officials also demanded Dolan remove any Katy ISD logo or trademark from any website or other social media account that he controls.
“So that we are absolutely clear,” the letter to Dolan stated, “you are not employed by, affiliated with or authorized to speak on behalf of the District in any capacity, to include any and all employment matters.”
Dolan said he intends to continue funding a national search for the Katy ISD superintendent but will direct the candidates to the appropriate Katy ISD channel.
Hindt earlier announced his plan to retire at the end of the year amid the growing controversy over decades-old bullying allegations against him. During a March 19 work-study meeting, Katy businessman Greg Gay accused Hindt of assaulting him in a junior high bathroom when they were both students. Hindt denied being Gay’s tormentor but later acknowledged that he did “dumb things” when he was younger. The Katy ISD superintendent also has been accused of plagiarizing his doctoral dissertation while a postgraduate student at the University of Houston. The investigation into that matter is ongoing, officials said.