Don Hill Slides From Mayoral Candidate to Alleged Criminal

"Very good. Very good. Very good. Good job, man," Hill told Lee in late April 2005, around the same time the council member was crusading against the strong-mayor proposal with far more eloquent words.

In his wedding to Farrington in the summer of 2006, Lee was Hill's best man.

The feds place Hill in a more convoluted bribery scheme connected to an effort to redevelop the Lancaster-Kiest Shopping Center in southeast Oak Cliff. There Hill used his position as a council member to rewrite the city's housing policy to help a fledgling development company run by Lee and others receive federal and city funds. In this alleged racket, Hill is the unquestioned ringleader. Here the same attorney who had trouble deposing witnesses for his clients meticulously ropes in unknowing executives, politicians and even an unnamed presidential cabinet member in his enterprise, seeking their assistance in "economic development opportunities," which presumably would benefit Lee's start-up.

All the while, the feds say, Hill gave Lee his marching orders. "Bring me in whenever you need me to, whatever I need to do, but you're going to have to keep your focus, man."

Then there was the mother of all extortion schemes, a brazen racket allegedly made possible only through Hill's efforts and which may have led to the investigation in the first place. There the feds say that Hill went to great lengths to extort bribes from an unnamed developer now known to be Bill Fisher, who at the time was Potashnik's chief rival in the competitive arena of affordable housing. This is how they say it went down:

In August 2004, in a zoning application hearing for one of Fisher's projects, Darren Reagan, a self-styled civil rights activist, called for a moratorium on all multifamily affordable housing projects, using the letterhead of his organization, the Black State Employees Association. Reagan's group, the feds noted, did not include any black state employees, but it had the imprimatur of a legitimate institution to anyone who didn't know any better. After Reagan threatened the viability of Fisher's project, none other than Hill steps in and tells Fisher to meet with Reagan. Lee meanwhile sends an emissary to Fisher to "seek financial assistance."

Fisher, who at this point may be wearing a wire, courtesy of the feds, meets with Reagan and his No. 2, Allen McGill. There Reagan and McGill tell Fisher that he needs to hire them as consultants in exchange for Hill's support of his project. Then Lee enters the negotiations and suggests Fisher donate money to Hill's birthday party.

In November 2004, Reagan, who just three months earlier announced his opposition to multifamily apartments, reversed his position and declared his support for Fisher's project. A few days later, Reagan accepted a $10,000 check from the unnamed developer, believed to be Fisher. Then he told the developer he needed to hire "certain minority contractors" if he wanted his project approved, while hitting him up for a monthly car allowance.

In February 2005, Reagan had his infamous meeting with Hill behind a church, where he handed him "at least $10,000 in cash." The scheme becomes even more inscrutable after that, but to sum it up, more people extort the developer, and they, in turn, figure out ways to give Hill his cut. Meanwhile, the council member, smack in the middle of his successful effort to defeat the strong-mayor proposal, continues to move the developer's project along, as his cronies keep him in the loop every step of the way.

Hill declined to be interviewed for our story, but his attorney Ray Jackson asserts his client's innocence without ever hedging his bets.

"I can say unequivocally that Mr. Hill did not take any money in exchange for votes or for using his powers as a councilman," he says. "If things are not in context, it could seem like Hill did something that was inappropriate, but he stands adamantly for his innocence."

Although Jackson declined for legal reasons to discuss the particulars of the feds' case, he did answer a question about the most infamous passage in the indictment.

"The scene that you're talking about at the church is drastically different than the reality of it," he says. "I can't specifically talk about how it was different, but I can tell you that it wasn't as it was portrayed. Mr. Hill never took any money other than for his campaign."

Sheila Hill says that she too is innocent and will not accept a plea. She says that she had a perfectly legal business relationship with Brian Potashnik and Southwest Housing and that it was far from the arrangement portrayed by the indictment.

"It was a legitimate and appropriate contract," she says, while declining to go into any details. "Southwest Housing has a team of the finest attorneys anyone can have and through thorough investigation and research and just exploring all aspects of the contract found that it was an appropriate and legitimate contract."