By Lisa Falkenberg, The Associated Press
DALLAS (AP) -- A day after voters ousted him, longtime Dallas County Sheriff Jim Bowles was indicted late Wednesday by a grand jury on one count of misapplication of fiduciary property over $100,000.
The grand jury also indicted Denton County Sheriff Weldon Lucas on two counts of aggravated perjury.
Details on the indictments were not immediately available.
A special prosecutor from Collin County had been investigating whether Bowles illegally accepted gifts from vendor Jack Madera, who later won the Dallas County jail’s commissary contract. The inquiry was opened after The Dallas Morning News reported that Madera paid for thousands of dollars in meals and trips for Bowles between 1999 and 2001.
Prosecutor Chris Milner did not immediately return a message left after hours at his office.
Bowles lost the Republican primary Tuesday night after 19 years as sheriff. He has maintained that he never broke any laws and that the investigation was a political smear campaign cooked up by county commissioners who wanted him out of office.
While the sheriff recently acknowledged that he could be indicted, department spokesman Don Peritz said “I don’t think the sheriff expected it at all.”
Peritz said he didn’t know how the indictment would affect the department but he believed Bowles could still remain sheriff.
“He hasn’t been convicted yet,” Peritz said.
The sheriff’s attorney did not immediately return a message.
A message left for Lucas by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.
Madera, who is a Kaufman County businessman and jail vendor, was indicted along with two former associates in January. The indictment alleged that they used a forged document to obtain a Kaufman County jail contract in 1997.