Earlier this month Ector County District Attorney Dusty Gallivan asked the Texas Rangers to look into allegations someone falsely reported Republican agitator Matt Coday was burglarizing homes and people at City Hall were abusing their power by hiding that person’s name.
Documents obtained by the Odessa American Tuesday reveal the person who texted Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke about someone “walking around in and out of houses” on Dec. 18 was Odessa Mayor Javier Joven.
On Tuesday, the OA received copies of the text messages the paper already obtained earlier this month about the events of that morning, but this time, two pages contain the following words at the bottom:
“Exhibit B – Highlighted portion redacted and released to requester. Confidential Informant (Mayor of the City of Odessa) called in suspicious vehicle in neighborhood.”
Coday’s attorney, former Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland said he has forwarded the documents to Gallivan asking him to send them to the Texas Rangers.
“I find it extremely troubling and more than ever this needs to be investigated for criminal activity,” Bland said. “The fact that the city is using its resources to protect the mayor and describe him as a confidential informant is shocking. During the 15 years I was DA when I saw ‘confidential informant’ that meant somebody that was turning state’s evidence, usually because they had information on a stash house. In this case, we’ve got the mayor calling or texting the chief of police and giving what my client says is false information trying to frame my client.”
Gallivan said he has not yet heard if the Texas Rangers will investigate Coday’s allegations, but he confirmed he will be forwarding documents he recently received from Bland to the agency.
According to police records obtained by the Odessa American under the Texas Public Information Act, Gerke received a text from someone on Dec. 18 stating they had seen someone near Bainbridge Drive in the Country Club area “walking around in and out of houses.”
The texter also told Gerke the man was driving a Ford F250 and provided him with a license plate that returned to Coday, reports stated.
Officers were unable to find Coday in the area or at his apartment, but contacted him by phone. Coday recorded all the conversations he had with various OPD staff about why they were seeking to speak with him.
The conversations indicate the officers were acting at the behest of someone who had texted Gerke. Coday repeatedly sought to find out who asked the police to find him.
According to the police report, Coday refused to tell officers if he was in the area or not until he was told who called the police on him. He was informed they could not.
“Since there was no crime that had been committed, Cpl. (Taylor) Miley and Sgt. (Jon) Foust were instructed to just do information narratives on the incident,” Captain Darryl Smith wrote in his report.
Coday contacted the Odessa American upset OPD did not investigate the texter for false reporting. Coday is well-known for calling out Joven and councilmembers Denise Swanner and Mark Matta on Facebook. He regularly hazes Swanner for once posting she had lunch with Josiah Vargas, which is a fake Facebook profile used to bully Odessans, and has accused the trio and Ector County Republican Chairwoman Tisha Crow of supporting controversial figure Casey Gray over Rep. Brooks Landgraf during the last election and also of bullying via Facebook fake profiles.
Coday said he was visiting his parents in Andrews at the time of the call and someone aligned with Crow and the others texted Gerke.
Kris and Tisha Crow live in the area where Coday was reported as being seen.
Coday believes officials aligned with that group could be abusing their positions by not investigating the texter and by shielding his or her identity.
Neither Coday nor the Odessa American have been able to get the texter’s name via Public Information Act requests. While the city provided the OA several texts, it’s difficult to ascertain who wrote some of them as either the names have been redacted or cut off. Adding to the confusion is the fact several of the texts were apparently copied and pasted to multiple individuals.
On Feb. 11, the Odessa American filed a subsequent public records request asking for all text messages exchanged between Joven and Swanner, Swanner and Gerke and Joven and Gerke on Dec. 18 “regardless of whether they were on private phones or city phones.”
The city responded: There are no additional records responsive to your request. All records were released in your previous requests and Councilwoman Swanner has no messages from December 18, 2023.
In response to the OA’s original TPIA seeking the police report and texts, City Attorney Dan Jones asked the Texas Attorney General’s Office on Dec. 29 for permission to keep the texter’s name private.
“The text message…was sent to the Chief of Police with the assumption of staying anonymous and listed as a confidential informant,” Jones wrote. “The city believes that the release of this information would cause harm to the complainant and deter them from submitting future complaints.”
He also told the AG’s Office the case was actively being investigated and charges could be brought and releasing the texter’s name could hinder investigators.
On Feb. 5, Jones sent a follow up email to the AG’s office making a new argument. Citing the Coday police report number, Jones told the AG that the “complainant was notifying the Police Chief of a possibly (sic) stalking situation.”
The texts received by the OA from that morning make no reference to stalking. Nor do the police reports.
Bland believes there is a possibility that Joven texted Gerke with second-hand information, but regardless, he does not believe Joven’s name should have been redacted even if that was the case.
The Texas Rangers need to be made aware the city is using its resources to protect a conversation between the mayor and one of his subordinates, the chief of police.
“I don’t know how you can label the mayor of the City of Odessa, Javier Joven, a confidential informant when you’re trying to shield that information from the public and then on top of it, we still have the problem of the city is trying to protect the identity of the mayor and not inquiring into where this false information came from,” Bland said. “Someone should be asking the mayor, where he got this information, and what is the basis of it and was he knowingly providing false information to the police?”
Bland also pointed out the text was written in close proximity to a two-day training the Ector County Republican Party hosted for its “Intelligence Op Team.”
“This text comes shortly after (Joven) is listed on a document from the Ector County Republican Party and their training regarding subterfuge and attacking political enemies and Mr. Coday is clearly someone who could be identified as a political enemy of Javier Joven,” Bland said.
Joven, who had a council workshop and council meeting Tuesday, did not respond to a request for comment sent between meetings.
