ORANGE COUNTY, Texas — A confidential informant is speaking out and advocating for change after reaching a settlement with several Orange County agencies.
She says there needs to be more regulations for confidential informants because although the lawsuit was settled, no fault was admitted.
This means other than a financial payout, there's no punishment for the agencies at the center of it.
Eric Franklin represents the woman at the center of this lawsuit. He filed the lawsuit on April 18, 2023.
The lawsuit alleges his client was mislead during her time working as a confidential informant in 2021.
On July 10, 2023, Franklin and the woman found out the lawsuit had been settled.
Since 2018, a Nederland woman says she has been working as a confidential informant on felony cases, ranging from theft to drug cases.
She tells 12News she's worked with different agencies across Southeast Texas, including the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
In 2021, she found herself on the wrong side of the law and was charged with drug possession.
She claims in exchange for helping the district attorney's office that "he would make sure that this case was dismissed you know and I did that."
After helping with five felony cases, the charges against her were not dropped.
Franklin says more regulations are needed to protect confidential informants. He says it is a dangerous, but important job.
"Orange County needs to have very clear policies because without those policies i'm not sure that there is official misconduct and that was something we never discovered what the policies were," Franklin said.
Orange County Sheriff Jimmy Lane Mooney was not the Orange County sheriff in 2021 during this woman's ordeal.
Mooney says since he's taken office, he's rolled out guidelines to better protect confidential informants.
"Anytime the Orange County Sheriff's Department under my employment we never meet an informant alone, it's always two or more people that meet with an informant and that's our policy, we never meet them alone," Mooney said.
The confidential informant settled her lawsuit for $25,000.
"But i didn't want to just take his money, I want his badge. I didn't want the money. The money didn't mean anything to me," She said.
She says she wants change.
"You know acts to have your cases dismissed, or anything like that it can't happen. It's not supposed to happen," she said.
12News is not naming specific individuals named in this public lawsuit, because they have not been criminally charged.
12News has reached out to the district attorney's office for comment, but we have not heard back.