Central Texas: 1 Corrupt Lawyer Down, More to Go

There're always a few bad apples in the bunch, but Central Texas is collecting bushels of corrupt lawyers.

According to a report from our news partners at KWTX, Kyle Layman, 33, was recently sentenced to a mere 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of criminal solicitation of a minor.

While originally charged with 3 counts of criminal solicitation of a minor, Layman is only going down for 1, with no further recommendation from the district attorney. Yet another trusted member of our community getting off with an extremely light sentence. This man was supposed to uphold the law, and represent those who need legal help, but instead Layman chose to engage in criminal activity for his own pleasure.

Layman was hired by the minor's mother because she was concerned her child was being harassed at school. The mother was told by Layman that he needed her daughter's phone number to communicate with her about the harassment she faced at school. Instead of helping as he was hired to do, Layman instead began to harass the young girl himself by sending explicit sexual messages through text.

The girl's mother contacted authorities and informed them that she was concerned about the messages her daughter was receiving from Layman. Officials then operated undercover and composed messages posing as the minor. Police were able to confirm the lewd messages that Layman was sending and he was arrested on June 20, 2019.

Now more than a year later, justice has finally been served. Yet there's still more corruption from Waco lawyers to be dealt with. Earlier this year, attorney at law Seth Sutton, 45, and his girlfriend, Chelsea Tijerina, 33, were arrested in an alleged murder-for-hire plot against yet another Waco lawyer, Marcus Daniel Beaudin, 37. Beaudin is currently facing a felony charge of indecency with a child.

Please, someone explain to me what is happening with the lawyers in Waco?

Sutton and Tijerna posted bonds and were released with ankle monitors and set curfews. Originally, Sutton's motorcycle club, the Red Mouse Cult MC, was under investigation for gang-related activities, but authorities must have been surprised to discover just how much crime was truly underway. Sutton formed the club after working with bikers involved with the Twin Peaks shootout.

And then there's the alleged corruption of former Waco District Attorney Abel Reyna, of which a whole novel could probably be written.

Looking from an outside perspective you can see how things became entangled, ugly and criminal. A phrase comes to mind about how "good news writes itself," and another about how journalists shouldn't "just report the news, but tell the story."

The moral of this tale is to bring awareness of the vast amount of corruption of our judicial system here in Central Texas. Yes, there's corruption in other places, and it continues the higher you climb, but we can start combatting corruption at the local level.