Prison official’s kin calls drug flap a ‘cover-up’

The senior prison official’s mother-in-law who was accused of selling drugs to agency employees outside a Huntsville lockup says she was set up amid a bitter family squabble involving an allegedly purloined prison computer, a backyard burn pile and an abundance of family acrimony.

It all came to a head, Kathy Lindley said, after a dispute over payment for her work at the family’s Chasin’ Tail food trailer.

“It was a cover-up,” she told Hearst Newspapers. “They don’t have anything on me.”

The 59-year-old was arrested last month on two felony drug charges after investigators alleged she sold Adderall to a pair of Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees, one outside a prison and the other outside a Tractor Supply Co. down the street.

The case stemmed from a tip to the prison’s Office of the Inspector General warning that Lindley was planning to make a false report accusing her daughter of stealing a TDCJ computer and dumping it on a burn pile at Lindley’s home, investigators confirmed.

When OIG officials showed up at the house in June, they recovered the burned remains of the computer and arrested her for allegedly selling prescription amphetamines to the two prison employees.

The employees, who are both wives of high-ranking prison officials, have since been fired. Earlier, Lindley’s daughter and son-inlaw — Melinda Brewer and TDCJ Regional Director Wayne Brewer — were both forced out of their prison jobs for unclear reasons. Last week, they sold their Chasin’ Tail food trailer.

The OIG, meanwhile, is continuing to probe additional allegations.

“Everybody that’s involved, we’re still scrutinizing,” Deputy Inspector General Joseph Buttitta said. “We haven’t cleared everybody yet. Some people are still under suspicion.”

According to Lindley, the drugdealing accusations were retaliation after she complained that her daughter and son-in-law failed to pay her when she worked at Chasin’ Tail earlier this year. The spat spilled over into a series of nasty texts, and she threatened to go to authorities about a computer she said her daughter asked her to burn four years ago.

Her daughter, Melinda, con

firmed to Hearst Newspapers a payment dispute spewed over into arguments on Facebook and through texts. The computer, she said, was a personal computer, and she maintained she and her husband did nothing wrong before they were “administratively separated” from their jobs at TDCJ.

“I feel like I was wrongfully terminated,” the 45-yearold said, adding that her husband — who previously declined to comment — later filed for retirement.

“OIG is not providing all the information,” she said. “Kathy was not set up.”

On the morning of June 26, OIG investigators parked outside Lindley’s home to surveil the place before going in for an arrest. Though Lindley was still in bed at the time, her husband Gary said he was out on the porch drinking coffee when he spotted an unfamiliar, darktinted SUV on the street.

The 55-year-old, who is on parole, grew suspicious as he watched the vehicle park and repark, so he decided to go talk to the driver.

“A lot of stealing goes on out here,” he said. “That’s what I thought it was.”

But the vehicle sped off as Gary approached, so he hopped in his own car to give chase for more than five miles. Finally, the SUV pulled over at a NAPA Auto Parts. When Gary pulled in behind them, he said, the investigators jumped out of the SUV and pulled their weapons before yanking him from the vehicle to arrest him.

The collar stemmed not from the alleged drug-dealing but from an unrelated allegation that Gary had bought a gun, OIG officials said. Given his existing felony conviction, that would be both a parole violation and a criminal offense.

He was booked into jail and later released on bond, though he maintains he never bought a weapon and only accompanied his wife to a pawnshop when she purchased one.

“Gary hasn’t touched a gun in years,” Lindley said. “I, however, love guns.”

When investigators came and knocked on Kathy’s door that morning, she didn’t realize her husband had already been arrested. Instead, she said, she tried to figure out what was going on as investigators searched the house, scoured the burn pit out back and seized her cell phones along with the guns she had locked in a closet.

During the search, officials found a scorched computer but couldn’t connect it to TDCJ, Buttitta said.

“It was pretty much disintegrated,” he said. “Best we can tell is that that was a personal computer.”

Instead, Kathy was arrested.

Purported deals

The two alleged buyers first talked to investigators weeks after the purported parking lot deals.

In one case, the agency worker allegedly bought 100 pills outside the Tractor Supply using a check — which Kathy said was actually payment for used furniture. The same day, Kathy allegedly met with another employee outside a TDCJ building on 11th Street in Huntsville, according to court records. Beforehand, according to records, she texted about the planned deal.

It’s not clear if either of the meet-ups was caught on camera, and Buttitta declined to say whether authorities were able to recover any of the text messages referenced in the court documents. Neither of the alleged buyers has been arrested.

Last week, as the dust started to settle, the Brewers sold their fish trailer to a new owner — former prison employee Josh McDonald. Now, the bright-red, downtown eatery will be a burger joint.