13 Investigates was there when Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo broke her silence about a controversial $10.9 million contract.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas -- Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo spoke publicly for the first time about allegations that three of her senior staffers misused public information to help steer a nearly $11 million COVID-19 outreach contract to a small Houston-based firm.
Investigators said text messages and emails between senior staffers show they communicated with Pereyra in January 2021 and allowed Pereyra to review and revise the project's scope of work nearly a month before a bid for proposals was publicly available to all on Feb. 19, 2021.Elevate Strategies was awarded a nearly $11 million COVID outreach contract with the county in June 2021, but it was canceled three months later.
On Tuesday, the county said that Elevate will have to pay the county back $1.2 million of the $1,425,237 it was paid. As part of their investigation, officials seized phones, laptops, and desktops for Aaron Dunn, then a senior advisor for public safety and emergency management at the county; Wallis Nader, who is Hidalgo's deputy policy director, and Alex Triantaphyllis, who is now Hidalgo's current chief of staff but was her deputy chief of staff in 2021.
"In a text between Dunn, Nader, and Triantaphyllis on May 7, 2021, Dunn asked Triantaphyllis if he could 'make the outreach RFP meeting that's happening now?' Triantaphyllis replied, 'No. Take it away. And don't let UT get it,'" according to a search warrant.
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