ROBERTS TRIAL DAY 7: Jury convicts, sheriff surrenders title

A Midland County jury found Winkler County Sheriff Robert Roberts guilty Tuesday on all six charges he faced in connection with a nurse whistleblower scandal.

Roberts was convicted of misuse of official information and retaliation, both third-degree felonies, and official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor. After waiving jury punishment, Roberts was given four years probation for each of the felony charges and 100 days in county jail for the misdemeanor offenses, all of which will be served concurrently.

He also was fined $1,000 for each charge, all part of a deal worked out between the two sides. He agreed to surrender his license and is waiving all appeal rights. Roberts must turn himself in to the Winkler County jail by 9 a.m. June 27. Winkler County commissioners will appoint someone to fill his unexpired term.

The jury deliberated for less than two hours before reaching the verdict, during which time lunch also was served to the jurors.

The verdict concludes a week-long guilt/innocence phase that was highlighted by the many accusations being made in the case not related to Roberts.

Defense attorney Woody Leverett said he thought both he and co-counsel Jason Leach presented a good case.

“Obviously, I strongly disagree with (the verdict),” he said. “And I would say this trial brings to conclusion the career of a distinguished law man.”

Leverett said he felt the jury did not take enough time to look at evidence when they went to deliberate, and two hours for deliberation was a short time to look at everything presented during the past week.

“That kind of tells me that they made up their minds before closing,” Leverett said.

The sentencing plea deal for Roberts “was not contingent” on him testifying in the trials of Arafiles and Tidwell, Leverett said, but he would not elaborate on whether the former sheriff will testify in those trials.

The Texas Office of the Attorney General also released a statement.

“In cases the Office of the Attorney General prosecutes like this, Attorney General (Greg) Abbott seeks to hold public officers to a high standard, and when the public trust is violated, we will seek appropriate justice for those charged with wrongdoing,” spokesman Tom Kelley said in the statement.

Leverett and Leach said in their closing arguments that the prosecution had not proven its case and that Roberts was acting within his position.

They claimed that he was following the law and did not have malice toward the two nurses.

“Don’t make a decision that’s going to case lawmen to be looking over their shoulders all the time, worrying if they’re going to be indicted in a case,” Leverett said during his closing argument.

But prosecutors with the Office of the Attorney General David Glickler and Shane Attaway pointed out during their closing arguments that helping the embattled Winkler County Memorial Hospital doctor was not within his job description.

“Sounds innocent enough, right? Trying to help a friend,” Attaway said during his closing argument. “The problem is, Robert Roberts committed six crimes while trying to do so.”

In connection with a 2009 complaint to the Texas Medical Board about Dr. Rolando Arafiles, Roberts used confidential information from the board for the nongovernmental purpose of finding who wrote the anonymous report.

Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle, two nurses at Winkler County Memorial Hospital, composed the complaint with additional information from former nurse practitioner at the hospital Naomi Warren.

The nurses in the report accused Arafiles of performing several surgeries in an emergency room not equipped for the procedures, selling herbal medicines and misdiagnosing patients.

When Arafiles found out about the complaint, he brought it up to Roberts, who began an investigation into who wrote the complaint by first obtaining names and addresses of all the patients whose confidential medical numbers were listed on the complaint.

Roberts then discovered it was Mitchell and Galle who wrote the report and brought the case before a grand jury with County Attorney Scott Tidwell.

The two were fired from the hospital, indicted and arrested in June 2009.

Mitchell was acquitted in January 2010 of a misuse of official information charge and the charge was dropped against Galle shortly before Mitchell’s trial.

Former hospital administrator Stan Wiley pleaded guilty in March to a misdemeanor charge of abuse of official capacity in exchange for his testimony, while Arafiles and Tidwell both still face charges.

Winkler County nurses timeline
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