The trial of a civil lawsuit accusing HISD trustee Larry Marshall, the school district and two contractors of a bribery scheme has been postponed five weeks to Dec. 3.
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison on Wednesday pushed back the trial date after granting a request by HISD for more time to file motions in the case. The lawsuit was filed by Gil Ramirez Jr., a construction contractor, in December 2010.
“Please don’t ask for any further delays,” Ellison told the lawyers in his courtroom Wednesday. Ellison also suggested a mediator that the attorneys could consider in case they wanted to try again to settle the case.
In addition, the judge granted a request by Ramirez to force HISD to produce a representative who could testify under oath about district staff or school board members who had knowledge of Marshall’s “relationship and activities with any vendor,” including RHJ-JOC and Fort Bend Mechanical, the two construction companies being sued.
HISD had countered that the request was too “broad and ambiguous.”
HISD has spent $1.2 million in legal fees defending the district and Marshall in the lawsuit, according to updated information obtained Wednesday through a public records request.
This article originally appeared on chron
