Houston Mayor Praises KPRC 2’s Amy Davis for Exposing Questionable City Contracts

In an exclusive interview, Houston Mayor John Whitmire thanked KPRC 2 Investigates reporter Amy Davis for her work in exposing a former director of the city of Houston’s water department, now accused of accepting bribes and stole millions of taxpayer dollars.

Patrece Lee was arrested Thursday evening after KPRC 2 reported that she and six others at the center of the water pipe repair contract scandal had been charged with bribery, abuse of official power and falsifying documents governments. A Harris County grand jury returned the indictments Thursday afternoon.

As part of our ongoing “VIDEO” investigation into the city’s botched water bills, Davis spent months examining questionable contracts within the Houston Department of Public Works. This work triggered a criminal investigation that led to the indictments.

While Davis was checking water main repair contracts last November, Davis repeatedly tried to get then-Mayor Sylvester Turner to answer his questions about them. When her phone calls and email requests for information went unanswered, she went to a public event and, after it was over, approached Turner and asked, “Are you going to stop pay contractors under investigation?

Turner responded, “Let me stop you.” Amy, you are very rude. You’ve come in now, you’re interrupting this event – I don’t appreciate that. I won’t talk to you. I told you years ago, when you were rude and disrespectful, that I was done with you.

“Because you continue to run away from issues that are important to taxpayers,” Davis responded.

“I don’t think she was rude to Mayor Turner. I think she was doing her job,” Mayor Whitmire said Friday during an interview on KPRC 2 News at 4 p.m. “We want city government to work for the public. Whether it is the airport, METRO, the housing authority, we will not allow conflicts of interest and when we suspect criminal activity, we will immediately refer it to the Texas Rangers and the district attorney’s office .”

You can read details of the criminal indictments here.

Harris County Prosecutor Kim Ogg told KPRC 2 the city is unlikely to recover the stolen taxpayer money. She says that in public corruption cases, restitution would simply mean prison time for a felony conviction against any of the seven people charged.

“Abuse of official capacity punishes public officials and officials who use their position to steal,” Ogg said. “We just want to say thank you to Channel 2, because without your work we wouldn’t have brought in the Rangers.”

Chronology of the KPRC 2 investigation into public works contracts