KPRC 2 Investigates obtained federal legal records that show William-Paul Thomas now has a seventh sentencing date.
Mayor Sylvester Turner’s former friend and Director of City Council Relations was scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 18 after being convicted for conspiracy tied to cash bribes over a year ago.
In legal documents filed by his attorney - without opposition from federal prosecutors – Thomas is now slated to be sentenced on a date that will be “30 days” after Dec. 18. However, no specific date in January is listed.
In the summer of 2022, Thomas admitted guilt in Houston federal court without being indicted or directly charged. Experts telling KPRC 2 Investigates the time, the federal case must have been overwhelming for Thomas not to put up a fight.
The postponement and new date come less than a month after KPRC 2 Investigates exposed a “Porsche Partnership” between Thomas and former airport concessionaire Jason Yoo. The two men purchased a convertible Porsche together in April 2018 during a period when Yoo was asking Thomas to assist him in getting hundreds of thousands in airport fines dismissed. It is unclear if our bombshell investigation had any impact on this latest delay, but the investigation did catch many Houstonians by surprise.
RELATED: Porsche partnership uncovered by KPRC 2 Investigates deep inside Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office
This latest motion also comes less than two months after Thomas was no longer on the hook for paying his attorney fees. The court officially made Monique Sparks his federally appointed public defender. KPRC 2 Investigates caught up with Thomas getting into a different convertible Porsche minutes after he learned he no longer would have to pay his attorney back in mid-October.
Former federal prosecutors have told KPRC 2 Investigates that one of the driving forces behind multiple sentencing delays in federal cases is the result of cooperation by the guilty party in other investigations being conducted by federal law enforcement.