Kim Ogg remains a sloppy, self-serving, unethical, and politicized hack, just as she was when she served as Harris County District Attorney.
Beyond taxes and death, there is another certainty Houstonians can count on: former District Attorney Kim Ogg cannot keep her mouth shut when it comes to making self-serving, politicized points, even at the expense of ethics and professionalism.
This was made clear by her recent unwanted and politicized intrusion into the highly publicized Jocelyn Nungaray murder case.
Two men, Franklin Jose Pena and Jose Martinez-Rangel, have been indicted for capital murder involving the murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in June 2024. The case and its political underpinnings have drawn an inordinate amount of national and international media attention, especially in conservative and right-wing venues, because the two charged men were in the country undocumented.
It was this high level of notoriety associated with the case that prompted Criminal District Court Judge Josh Hill to issue a gag order, prohibiting all lawyers involved in the case from speaking about it, especially from expressing opinions about the guilt of the two men charged in the crime.
Every responsible attorney in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office knew they had the professional obligation not to publicly discuss the case in any context that would implicate guilt to the two accused men.
Yet, Kim Ogg—true to form—defied professional norms. Despite the gag order and the ethical expectations of an attorney, Ogg appeared on local television to discuss details of the case, including unverified allegations that one of the accused, Franklin Pena, had previously committed a sexual assault in Costa Rica.
Ogg learned about this alleged sexual assault while she was still district attorney in Harris County. That information, true or not, was confidential information she obtained while heading the District Attorney’s Office. Her grossly irresponsible on-air revelations about Pena’s prior alleged criminal history immediately roiled the local courthouse community, sparking demands for an ethics investigation against her, as well as demands by Pena’s attorney for the charges against Pena to be dismissed. A motion was also filed by the current Harris County District Attorney, Sean Teare, to restrain Ogg’s public commentary and her reckless comments.
Judge Josh Hill agreed, effectively telling the former (and failed) district attorney to keep her mouth shut about the Nungaray case, and expanded the gag order to include Ogg.
Ogg said she decided to blab about the confidential information—information she had allegedly learned when deciding to charge Pena with capital murder—because she had become concerned about some prosecutorial decisions being made in the case by current D.A. Sean Teare, one of her former prosecutors who soundly ousted her out of the district attorney’s office in a March 2024 primary election.
Here are just a few of the reasons why Democratic voters drove her and her Republican-leaning political agenda out of public office:
- Abuse of Power and Targeting Political Opponents: In 2023, Democratic Party leaders accused her of abusing power and failing to represent party values. Ogg was continuously criticized in multiple forums for targeting political opponents for improper investigations and prosecutions, such as Barbie Robinson, former executive director of Harris County Public Health, and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
- Mishandling High-Profile and Prosecutorial Misconduct: Ogg Mishandled the Harding Street Raid case by withholding and refusing to turn over exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys as ordered by the trial judge. She also recklessly charged a doctor with the theft of vaccines during the COVID pandemic, forcing the trial judge to dismiss the case because its prosecution was “riddled with sloppiness and errors.”
- Mismanagement and Poor Decision-Making: The mismanagement and atmosphere of paranoia at the office led to a mass exodus of experienced prosecutors, while inexperienced prosecutors were micromanged and mistreated, resulting in poor outcomes for the Office.
- Politically Motivated Election Fraud Investigations: In 2022, Ogg politically targeted a county election official for timesheet fraud; however, a widespread, costly, and unnecessary investigation ultimately turned up no evidence of election misconduct.
- Financial Mismanagement: Another pointless and politically motivated investigation of county employees resulted in no evidence of wrongdoing, forcing local taxpayers to shell out $1.5 million to attorneys defending those wrongly targeted for investigation.
That is the record of a former district attorney who was concerned about the “prosecutorial decisions” ” of the current D.A. who ousted her from office because the electorate deemed she was incompetent, unprofessional, and mismanaged her office.
Ogg’s ethical disclosure of confidential information should be investigated by the State Bar because it was an egregious breach of ethics and the special duties of a prosecutor.
We believe Ogg disclosed the confidential information for two reasons: first, to take a dirty, political swipe at D.A. Teare, and second, to curry favor with her local Republican pals by appearing on a Fox television news outlet to suck up.
Perhaps the judicial gag will force her to keep her mouth shut for now—but if the past is a guide, we doubt it.
