The City of San Antonio’s Ethics Review Board found Wednesday that Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) violated three parts of the city’s ethics code, following San Antonio attorney and former bar owner Martin Phipps’ complaint accusing him of abusing his office and access to law enforcement.
Whyte, who once served on the ethics board before he was a councilman, is being punished with letter of reprimand and mandatory ethics training. The board declined to pursue a $500 civil fine, and its full ruling will be available Aug. 19.
Wednesday night’s three-and-a-half hour hearing painted a detailed picture of how, at his wife’s urging, Whyte involved two branches of law enforcement, plus another councilman, in checking in on a potentially endangered child at Phipps’ residence while Whyte was at a Fiesta party in April.
Whyte knew police had already arrived on the scene at the time he alerted Police Chief William McManus and Councilman Manny Pelaez (D8), who looped in Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar and sent urgent text messages to City Manager Erik Walsh and Assistant City Manager María Villagómez, who oversees police and fire.
Pelaez is not under review, but attended Wednesday’s hearing as a witness invited by Whyte.
Together they insisted their actions were taken because the urgent text messages from Whyte’s wife, combined with their knowledge of Phipps’ personal history, led them to believe that a child in Phipps’ care could be in imminent danger, which they said Texas law required them to report.
“Folks, I would do what I did all over again, not just because I’m required by Texas law to report it, but because that’s what anybody should do,” Whyte said at the board’s hearing Wednesday night.
Of Phipps’ complaint, he added: “This was designed for revenge and to hurt me, and it succeeded.”
No charges were filed in the incident, and Phipps says the continued visits by law enforcement were confusing and alarming to his children.
Phipps was both Whyte and Pelaez’s mock trial coach at St. Mary’s Law School, and all three of the men spoke over one another at times during Wednesday’s hearing.
Phipps said he learned about Whyte’s involvement that night in April when law enforcement officers returned to his home the second time, brandishing screen shots of text messages from Whyte’s wife suggesting that Phipps’ daughter was in immediate danger.
Phipps later filed the complaint against Whyte alleging the councilman violated several provisions of the ethics code, including conflicts of interest and improper influence.
“He comes in here and he says, ‘This is the standard: … When councilmen have a reasonable suspicion because they don’t like you, they can get the sheriff to send someone over to your house,'” Phipps told the Ethics Review Board on Wednesday.
Fischer’s timeline
In response to Phipps’ complaint, the city hired Ross Fischer, an Austin-based ethics attorney, who put together a detailed timeline of the night and presented it to the Ethics Review Board on Wednesday night.
That timeline showed that while Whyte was at a Fiesta party in the King William neighborhood that evening in April, he received urgent text messages from his wife, Lorien, saying “cops are at Martin’s house in King William… we may need to get the police chief involved.”
In a subsequent text message, she added: “You have to impart on him how serious this is… Manny can help too. I’m sure. Please give us an update.”
Whyte texted McManus and called another SAPD officer. When he didn’t get a response, Whyte approached Pelaez at the party, who said he got Salazar involved, and the sheriff ultimately dispatched a deputy to the nearby party.
“I’m the one that spoke to Sheriff Salazar,” Pelaez said in Whyte’s defense at the Ethics Review Board hearing on Wednesday. “After we showed him the text [from Whyte’s wife] that was it. The majority of the talking was done by Sheriff Salazar, myself and the deputy.”
Both law enforcement agencies ultimately found nothing wrong at the scene, and SAPD closed the incident by 9:43 p.m.
When McManus told Whyte that his officers were handling the issue about a half hour later, the councilman expressed his continued dissatisfaction with SAPD’s response: “I really hope something doesn’t happen. I can’t believe your guys left.”
The board’s deliberations
Fischer, along with the ethics review board chair and vice chair, agreed last month that the full board, which is appointed by members of the City Council, should take up Phipps’ complaints.
When Whyte had the chance to address the board Wednesday, his comments focused on his obligation to help a child in need, and the idea that any citizen could reach out to law enforcement leaders — not just councilmen.
“What if I had done nothing and something could have happened to that child?” Whyte said. ” … When I got those text messages, I wasn’t acting as a councilman, but as a citizen of this community that was looking out for a small child.”
Pelaez concurred that he communicates with McManus via text message any time he has a law enforcement issue, and regularly loops Walsh and other city leaders in on issues he finds important.
Board members were skeptical of Whyte’s and Pelaez’s casual characterizations of their relationships with law enforcement, at one point even suggesting that the two men weren’t grasping the extent of their privilege as elected officials.
Of the four allegations against Whyte, the board voted unanimously to dismiss one regarding whether Whyte or his wife stood to benefit financially from his moves, which was raised because Whyte’s wife, who is also an attorney, represented Phipps’ ex-wife in the couple’s child custody case.
The board agreed that Whyte did violate the city’s ethics code by using his position to unfairly advancing or impeding a private interest, by using the prestige of office for improper influence, and by improperly requesting the use of city personnel who are on the clock for private purposes not available to the public.
