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Several loom large:
Are there any others who allege sexual abuse?
After 14 months of probing, how did a state investigator fail to collect the evidence needed to convince a visiting prosecutor to seek trial?
Why was the grand jury questioning of Ratcliff so vague?
The trial doors to those answers closed when visiting San Antonio District Judge Mark Luitjen accepted Ratcliff’s plea deal – an admittance of aggravated perjury, probation and other restrictions.
The public, for better or worse, won’t be able to know the case’s more intricate details.
Those close to the case say answers to the dangling questions are simple and free of conspiracies.
“After he was indicted, no other victims came forward and said, ‘yes, he abused me, too,’” said Terry McDonald, the San Antonio special prosecutor who offered Ratcliff the plea deal. “The sum total of the evidence is what the accuser said.”
McDonald said Ratcliff’s file lacked physical evidence and contained few clues.
“I think if you were present in court today you can understand that trying this case would be extremely difficult,” he said.
The prosecutor alluded to Ratcliff’s accuser, a man he says has credibility concerns and who sat again Friday in the Victoria County Jail – one of about 30 stays in Texas lock-ups.
Ratcliff also has several illnesses and a positive public track record, soft spots for juries, McDonald noted.
Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. John Schlinger investigated Ratcliff for 14 months leading to the Oct. 25 grand jury indictment.
When approached in the courtroom, Schlinger declined comment as he has since last year. “See you later,” he said.
Eleven months before the indictments, first-term Victoria County District Attorney Steve Tyler announced Ratcliff was his chief of staff. Tyler maintains Schlinger then told him the former sheriff was under investigation.
Schlinger worked to corroborate the story offered by an accuser who frequented jails and skipped town, Tyler said. That the alleged crime first occurred 10 years ago complicated Schlinger’s job, Tyler added.
Tyler passed the case to McDonald when the district attorney realized he could be called as a witness.
McDonald based his plea deal on sparse evidence and weak grand jury testimony, he said.
“That’s the best I had. Steve Tyler wasted a lot of time in that grand jury room with Michael Ratcliff,” McDonald said. “It disappointed me. I wish I had more.”
McDonald pointed to vague questions that solicited fruitless answers. Tyler didn’t ask Ratcliff, for example, when he had sexual relations with the accuser.
Tyler said if he’d asked Ratcliff more pointed questions, the former sheriff would have likely just denied them.
“So what you do is nibble around the edges. You establish the stuff that makes a credible case in front of a jury,” Tyler said. “If you ask something you know is going to freeze him up, he invokes the Fifth and you don’t get other information. Remember, when we asked the questions, we were trying to discover what was going on.”
But what if Tyler sculpted vague questions knowing a special prosecutor would one day only have this testimony to prosecute with? What if Tyler acted to help Ratcliff?
Both Tyler and McDonald said the notion is ridiculous.
“What would be a lot easier to do is assert influence over the grand jury – we don’t do that here – and not get it indicted,” Tyler said. “And then nobody gets to look at it. Those conspiracies are just wild-eyed things. They whether quickly under the light of reality and rational thinking.”
McDonald agreed.
“If Tyler was in cahoots with Ratcliff, quite frankly, he could have gotten a no-bill,” McDonald said. “He indicted him. Ratcliff pleaded to a felony. If that’s the kind of friend Steve Tyler is, I don’t want a friend like him.”
Tyler, meanwhile, said he wished he had more evidence. Then he alluded to the more recent indictments of four public officials who the district attorney contends meddled with the Ratcliff investigation.
The public officials – the police chief, mayor, sergeant and former city attorney – deny the allegations.
Before Ratcliff’s indictments, former City Attorney David Smith told the Advocate he was suspicious of the investigation’s progress. Smith thought the progress was slow.
If officials shared information with the press, Tyler said, it’s likely they shared information with others. In a small town, word spreads fast, he said.
“When information leaks out, it’ll get back to the person you’re looking at,” Tyler said. “That’s why investigations should remain secret.”