AP: Texas

05/25/2005

Associated Press

A grand jury in Upshur County has indicted the former president of the New Diana school board for conspiring to circumvent the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced Wednesday.

Abbott said in a news release that it was the first criminal indictment by a Texas attorney general for an Open Meetings Act violation.

The grand jury indicted John Moore, former school board president. It also indicted former superintendent Dan Noll on charges of abuse of official capacity. Phone numbers could not be located Wednesday for Noll and Moore.

According to the news release, Moore allegedly had several private conversations with school board members to gauge their support for a possible severance package for Noll in exchange for Noll's resignation. The package was later approved at a school board meeting in May 2004.

Following Noll's resignation, evidence came up indicating he had misused public funds while in office, according to Abbott's office. That evidence eventually led to the indictment against him.

Those revelations also allegedly prompted Moore to confess an open meetings violation to the Upshur County district attorney, hoping that the meeting where the severance package was approved would be voided, the news release said.

District and county attorneys have original jurisdiction to enforce the Open Meetings Act, but can ask for assistance from the attorney general, which they did in this case.