Political star tainted by liabilities
Dallas: Don Hill's successes slowed by sanctions, FBI inquiry
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill's professional and political career has followed two paths – one sprinkled with success and the other on the cusp of ruin.
His early legal career was highlighted by a groundbreaking lawsuit against the city of Dallas.
Later, he would become a popular, effective politician, with the public persona as a man of integrity who might one day be mayor.
But he's also a man with considerable liabilities.
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. And he owes the IRS at least $140,000 for failing to pay personal income taxes, according to tax liens filed in May 2005 in the Dallas County clerk's office.
Most worrisome, he's the biggest name in the FBI's City Hall corruption investigation, with personal or professional connections to many of the other targets in the investigation.
And it's that development that has many of his friends and supporters reeling.
"I'm just kind of in a state of shock about Don. I knew Don real well," said Monique Allen, a member of the Dallas Housing Finance Corp. board. "The whole thing puzzles me, because there's some people you kind of figured, 'Well, they're good ol' boys.' But Don's just not that way. And he really cares about his district."
Others who know Mr. Hill, particularly some of his former legal clients, are not surprised.
"He's definitely leading a double life," said Laverne Johnson, a Tyler woman who says Mr. Hill took $5,000 to represent her in a lawsuit against her employers and then didn't file the case within the statute of limitations. "He led me to believe that he would do his best to represent me. You can put lipstick on a pig and it will still be a pig."
Mr. Hill declined to be interviewed for this story, issuing this statement through his council office:
"In the present environment, what can the story be but an attempt at an obituary or 'Hill in the middle of controversy'? I do not see this as a positive story."
Friends and associates say Mr. Hill doesn't fit the stereotype of a politician on the take.
They point out he has been wearing the same pair of shoes and houndstooth suit for years.
"I am reserving judgment until all the facts are in," said former council member Barbara Mallory Caraway, who served with Mr. Hill for two years. "But I can't see ... [corruption] being in his character or in his method."
Mr. Hill's rise through Dallas' political ranks was years in the making.
An Austin native and junior high school classmate of former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, he moved to Dallas in 1978 to work as a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Labor. His primary duties were to sue companies that didn't adhere to affirmative action plans.
He left the Labor Department in 1983 to form a law firm with, among others, Don Hicks, a fellow graduate of Texas Southern University. Later, he would succeed Mr. Hicks to the City Council.
Building a career
During his early years in Dallas, Mr. Hill had little interest in politics.
"I was just like other transplants that moved here," he said earlier this year. "I was trying to build a career, make money and take care of my family."
His big legal score came in 1993 when he settled a lawsuit with the city of Dallas. He had argued that the Dallas Police Department's promotional exams discriminated against black officers. The city agreed to promote 17 detectives, the largest group of black officers ever promoted to sergeant.
In 1999, with Mr. Hicks' support, he was elected to the City Council and quickly became one of that body's most influential members.
He was Mr. Kirk's floor leader and eventually became the city's deputy mayor pro tem. When council member Mary Poss became acting mayor in 2002 after Mr. Kirk resigned to run for the U.S. Senate, Mr. Hill was chosen as mayor pro tem by his colleagues.
Because he was able to deliver southern-sector votes on the council and had strong working relationships with North Dallas council members, his power sometimes exceeded that of the mayor.
When Laura Miller was elected mayor in 2002, Mr. Hill became the leader of a majority bloc of council members that sometimes opposed her.
Fellow council members liked his smooth approach and easy-going style. He rarely got angry. And when he did lose his temper, he was quick to mend fences.
Friends and supporters say he spends numerous hours talking with constituents about their needs.
"I've always found Don Hill to be someone who cared deeply about his constituents," Dallas lawyer Michael Sorrell said. "Never once did I see anything to make me think he would be mired in an ethical dilemma."
Perhaps Mr. Hill's finest political hour occurred in May, when he successfully helped rally voters against a proposal that would have given the mayor more power. In one of his first joint appearances with Ms. Miller to debate the merits of the proposal, Mr. Hill set the tone for the opposition campaign and gave it early momentum.
"He obviously won that first debate against the mayor," Dallas political consultant Pat Cotton said. "He did a great job."
One evening in April, he met a group of city employees at a north Oak Cliff jazz club to lift their spirits. They were concerned that Ms. Miller would get more power and change the dynamics of City Hall.
"I know you see storm clouds overhead," he told them. "But if you look beyond that, you'll see the sun shining."
Reminder of failings
The FBI investigation has soured those days of wine and roses and reminded some of Mr. Hill's failings.
For example, the State Bar of Texas disciplined Mr. Hill for taking money from two clients he did not adequately represent, according to an agreed judgment made public in May 2004.
Mr. Hill, an expert in employment law, received a four-year, fully probated suspension. This means he may practice law under close supervision from a mentor and risks losing his license if he again violates rules of professional conduct that Texas attorneys must adhere to.
As part of the settlement, state bar lawyers agreed not to take disciplinary action against Mr. Hill based on nine other cases he litigated.
Mr. Hill was ordered to pay $17,798.67 in restitution to the two clients who lodged complaints against him and to pay legal fees to the state bar.
Mr. Hill took the cases that led to his admonishment in 1997 and 1999. The two clients, La Verne A Bryan and Jacqueline McKinely, told state bar investigators that Mr. Hill took money from them upfront and later failed to prepare for hearings, kept them in the dark about the status of the cases and would not account for how he had spent their money.
Similar allegations were made by Ms. Johnson, who paid Mr. Hill $5,000 to represent her in a 1999 lawsuit against her employer, United Technologies.
U.S. District Judge John Hannah Jr. dismissed Ms. Johnson's suit because it was not filed within the statute of limitations and because Ms. Johnson had failed to exercise "due diligence" in serving the defendant.
She blamed her lawyer, Mr. Hill.
"My attorney drug his feet," she said. "And he didn't give me back my money."
Tax problems
Mr. Hill has also had problems settling his tax obligations, which had threatened to derail his political career before it started.
Between 1984 and 1992, he almost never paid his taxes on time, according to IRS records.
For that period, the IRS filed 34 liens against him or his law firms for more than $350,000 in employment and income taxes he did not pay.
Before joining the law office of Burt Barr and Associates in Dallas in 2003, 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.
Political analysts say his financial problems alone would have made it difficult for Mr. Hill to win a citywide election.
"We don't know if there's any kind of major criminal activities," said Rufus Shaw Jr., a political analyst and columnist for the Elite News, a newspaper aimed at Dallas' black churches. "What we do know is that he's now unelectable. Those fiscal problems would have made it extremely difficult for him. Can you imagine having a mayor who doesn't even own his own car?"
Mr. Hill still drives a luxury car given to him by Sheila Farrington, a political consultant he has described as a friend who also has been targeted by the FBI.
The FBI has searched that car, which Mr. Hill said previously he "has earned the right to drive."
Ms. Farrington has financial ties to many of the names in the FBI probe, including Mr. Hill, and could be a key figure in the investigation that federal authorities say involve housing issues and bribery.
Mr. Hill's political campaigns have paid Ms. Farrington $12,700 in consulting and other fees since 2002.
Others investigated
The FBI is also investigating D'Angelo Lee, who is Mr. Hill's friend and appointee to the City Plan Commission – a board with great power over developers.
Brian Potashnik, the head of Southwest Housing Development Co., is also a target in the probe. He has contributed thousands of dollars to Mr. Hill's campaign, as well as other council members and the mayor.
Federal officials refuse to discuss details of their investigation. And some legal observers say they don't think Mr. Hill has anything to worry about legally.
"I personally don't think anything is going to come of this investigation," Dallas lawyer Craig Watkins said. "He's at the wrong place at the wrong time."
But no matter what the result of the investigation, it's unlikely Mr. Hill will be able to weather politically the bad publicity generated by the probe.
Even he has his doubts.
"The end result is that you are tainted with corruption allegations," he told The Dallas Weekly, another black newspaper. "It does damage your ability to go to the broader community and say, 'I am a credible, viable candidate,' if that's your desire to run for mayor or any other position. ... I am trusting God to bring all this to an end in some point in his time."
Staff writer Ernesto Londoño contributed to this report.
MILTON HINNANT / Dallas Morning News
Many of Don Hill's supporters have been baffled by developments surrounding him.
