Source: TexasMonthly.com

A Texas prosecutor was once fond of saying there are crimes and there are sins, and you can only prosecute the crimes. On Monday, State Representative Dawnna Dukes’s lies and misuse of office were downgraded from potential felonies to mere transgressions. A Travis County grand jury indicted Dukes this past January on thirteen counts of feloniously tampering with a government record by filing requests for daily legislative pay even when she didn’t go to the Capitol to work. But as prosecutors prepared for trial last month, they discovered that the House does not actually enforce its written rule that lawmakers must physically work from the Capitol to draw daily pay. That unraveled the key to the indictments, which was that Dukes claimed to have worked at the Capitol when she did not. Dukes was accused of cheating the state out of about $61 a day. To clear two misdemeanor charges against her, Dukes repaid the state $1,340 for salary paid to one of her aides for transporting her daughter. Dukes also paid a $500 fine to the Texas Ethics Commission and reimbursed her campaign fund $5,230 that had gone to personal use.