Newspapers are so polite. They spell out the facts, but they don’t use the operative word. So FrontBurner will. Fact #1, from Grover Jeffers’ excellent report in Saturday’s News:
Mr. Hill was sanctioned by the Texas Bar Association in 2004 after complaints that he took money from clients and did not provide them with legal services.
In some circles, that’s known as white collar crime. In other circles, it’s known as stealing. And then there’s Fact #2:
…Mr. Hill owed the IRS more than $117,000 for failing to pay payroll taxes at his old law firm. A certificate made public in February 2003 shows he was released from that lien. One of the tax liens filed in May that seeks $116,898.97 targets Mr. Hill and his wife, Vivian. The other one, which demands $23,287.27, names only Mr. Hill.
Lots of people have a hard time paying their taxes. But Hill didn’t pay his employees’ taxes, that is, their withholding and Social Security payments. He wasn’t stealing from the government, he was stealing from them. In both cases, it was a betrayal of a private fiduciary responsibility. So why would anyone expect him to uphold the public trust? To put it plainly, he’s a thief.
