Ogg is Eager to Transform the DA’s Office and Include Diversity

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: In Kim Ogg’s quest to become the Harris County District Attorney, the second time was the charm as she hammered in on the issues that she said exposed the bad managerial style of the incumbent DA, Republican Devon Anderson. Two years ago, Andersen beat Ogg in a tussle over substantive policy reform, but this time, Democrat Ogg found several key issues that stuck with the voters in the hardest fought race in the County between the two parties.

Ogg’s victory marked the return of a Democrat to the office after many years of Republican control and was a bright spot for the Democratic party in Harris County in the 2016 elections. Ogg focused on Anderson’s lack of managerial skills in at least four cases: keeping a mentally unstable rape victim in jail in general population over the Christmas holidays to ensure that she would testify against her attacker; the destruction of evidence in more than 1,000 criminal cases in the Harris County Precinct 4 constable’s office; a prosecutor who did not disclose payments to witnesses in a murder case and two prosecutors who intentionally forced a mistrial of a doctor accused of fondling a juvenile patient.

In her law office near the Galleria, Ogg pointed to a 1992 picture of herself as a young assistant district attorney from among the 192 who were in Harris County DA Johnny Holmes office. In the same photo collage were the man who was elected DA in 2012, Mike Anderson and his wife, Devon Anderson who was appointed to serve out his position after he died of cancer in August 2013. After she left the DA’s office, Ogg headed Crime Stoppers of Houston and recently had her own private practice. Ogg is the daughter of former State Senator Jack Ogg.

During her two runs for the DA’s office, Ogg has become quite familiar with the South Asian community in the Metroplex and is aware of their hard working ethic and keen business mind. She was a speaker and an emcee at two Indo American Charity Foundation events in 2013. She realizes that many small business owners have been victims of crimes and recalled a prominent jewelry store in Little India that had a break in and then turned to private detectives to find the criminals. “As DA, I will encourage them to call my office if HPD does not respond,” she said adding “If we don’t investigate and prosecute those who hurt our business community, then we hurt our economy.”

Ogg realizes that the South Asians are a community which is mostly concerned about robberies and burglaries. She is eager to find attorneys from the community who want to work as prosecutors in her office. She wants to streamline the DA’s office to analyze crime data across multiple jurisdictions. She would like to focus on problems in the international community like crime rings, white collar fraud and crime against the elderly.

“I would like to start an International Advisory Board, plan community outreach with the DA’s office and work on solutions,” she said. “I want to serve the business community by putting emphasis on the criminals who prey on them.”