Houston’s District Attorney has objected to the release of text messages related to some of the most contentious elements of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden of River Oaks filed a Public Information Act (PIA) request with the Texas Medical Board (TMB) asking for “All emails, text messages to and from Dr. Robert Bredt, MD with the words ‘ivermectin,’ ‘mandate,’ ‘vaccine,’ ‘hydroxychloroquine,’ [and] ‘Methodist’ from 3/2020 to present.”
Documents obtained by The Dallas Express reveal that TMB’s legal counsel informed District Attorney Sean Teare that documents belonging to someone at the DA’s office were discovered during the search for the requested files. The counsel indicated that these documents would be released to Bowden unless the DA raised an objection.
An attorney for the DA’s office responded on March 5 that Teare was objecting to the release of some of the documents and seeking permission from the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to do so. One objection the lawyer raised was that “Some of the records requested relate to the DA’s criminal case file for State of Texas v. Dustin Moore.”
State of Texas v. Dustin Moore is better known as the infamous “fake butt injection” case where Moore and two women were accused of smuggling illegal substances into the United States to give cosmetic procedures to Americans. Houston prosecutors brought the case against Moore, and federal agents reportedly uncovered counterfeit Chinese botox during his arrest.
Moore was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison in the summer of 2024.
Other objections Teare’s attorneys raised were founded in a “Prosecutorial Work Product” exception to the PIA.
The general counsel’s brief reasoned, “The emails contained in [unattached appendix] constitute the work product of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. These documents contain information prepared by prosecutors during the course of criminal litigation, reflect their mental impressions and legal reasoning, or are notations of a prosecutor prepared during criminal litigation and were not intended for public dissemination.”
In their message to Paxton’s team, the DA’s lawyers urged them to designate the files as exempt from disclosure under the PIA.
It is unclear how many documents TMB’s office found and how many Teare wants withheld. It is also not apparent what Bredt or any of the requested search terms had to do with a case against Moore.
Bowden requested these documents as part of a larger inquiry she has made into TMB’s actions around COVID-19 mandates.
Bowden came to national prominence in 2021 when she criticized COVID-19 vaccine mandates. As a result, Houston Methodist Hospital, where she had admittance privileges but was not an employee, suspended her.
Bowden was also an advocate for using the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin to treat the respiratory virus. This treatment method was contentious among pandemic-era physicians, but Bowden told DX she found it to be highly effective in the thousands of cases of COVID-19 she had treated.
TMB launched a case against her in 2023 for her attempt to treat an ailing, COVID-infected sheriff’s deputy with the pharmaceutical product at the pleadings of the deputy’s wife in 2021.
Battles for documents between Bowden and TMB have become frequent, with some clashes resulting in the resignation of high-ranking Board officials.
One such occurrence came after Bowden obtained the CV of the Board’s then-Medical Director Robert Bredt. The Board had intended to use Bredt as an expert witness against Bowden because of his alleged expertise in the Board’s procedures and investigation process.
However, he exited the witness list and the Board after his CV revealed that he was a Laboratory Medical Director at Planned Parenthood San Antonio. Numerous state reps called for his resignation, DX reported.
The nexus between Bowden’s requested search terms, Bredt, the Medical Board, and Houston’s DA is not immediately clear.
DX reached out to Bredt and Teare for an explanation about why Bowden’s search terms were present in communications between the two entities, but neither party immediately returned comment.