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When Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez fired Robert “Mark” Antill one year ago, he had compelling evidence for terminating his information technology director. About 20 employees from across the agency had complained about Antill making racist, homophobic, vulgar and other inappropriate comments in the workplace.
It didn’t take long, though, for Antill to find another employer in local government: the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Records obtained by the Houston Landing show District Attorney Kim Ogg’s administration hired and continues to retain Antill in an information technology analyst job, even after learning that Gonzalez fired him for violating workplace behavior policies.
The documents also show Antill remains employed at the district attorney’s office, earning about $113,400 annually, despite claiming on his job application that his employment at the sheriff’s office ended due to “leadership changes.” Antill’s job application states that “any false, misleading, incomplete or omitted information” will result in “ineligibility for employment or termination of employment.”
County records suggest Ogg’s administration initially did not know about Antill’s misdeeds when they hired him in early February for his “expertise in the specified area of 911 communications.”
However, a late February memo authored by the district attorney’s office human resources director, Elizabeth Stevens, documents that agency officials became aware of Antill’s firing for workplace misconduct shortly after his hiring. Stevens copied two of Ogg’s top lieutenants — Chief of Staff Vivian King and First Assistant District Attorney David Mitcham — on the memo.
At the time, Stevens warned Antill to comply with the agency’s standards of conduct, specifically writing that intolerant comments could lead to his firing. Stevens added that Antill was “not serving in a leadership role,” had “no supervisory authority” and did not primarily work in agency offices.
In a Dec. 20 interview, District Attorney’s Office Communications Director Joe Stinebaker defended the agency’s continued employment of Antill, who is working on making 911 calls more accessible for agency staff. Stinebaker noted that Antill works “entirely on his own” out of a sheriff’s office facility and “deals only with our director of (information technology).”
“We got permission from the sheriff’s office for him to do this, and for him to continue officing at the same place, so they’re obviously not too terrified of the guy,” Stinebaker said.
However, a day after this article’s publication, district attorney’s office spokespeople corrected their account of Antill’s workplace, saying they have confirmed he works remotely from a home office.
When asked about Antill’s false statement on his job application, Stinebaker said “we did not feel like it barred his continued employment.”
Antill did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Stinebaker confirmed that Antill had received inquiries from the Landing seeking comment.
Ogg swept into office in 2016 as a Democratic champion for criminal justice reform. However, members of her own party have increasingly criticized her as insufficiently progressive, culminating in a formal admonishment last week from the Harris County Democratic Party. Ogg is running for re-election in 2024 and faces a primary challenge from one of her former deputies, Sean Teare.
An unhappy office
Antill’s pink slip from Gonzalez followed a tenure riddled with accusations that he made offensive comments targeting multiple co-workers.
According to an internal affairs investigation completed last year, about 20 employees, many of whom worked in Antill’s information technology department, provided sworn statements alleging an extensive history of inappropriate conduct. The allegations included:
- Multiple employees reporting Antill made fun of accents and diverse cuisines eaten by co-workers, with one staffer stating that Antill called an employee “garbage” because of the food he ate.
- Two employees reporting Antill for asking words to the effect of, “Why do your people always pile into one vehicle?” when a group of Latino workers came to an office to clean during the pandemic.
- Two staffers alleging Antill said homosexuality was one step away from pedophilia.
- Multiple employees recounting Antill using vulgar terms when referring to co-workers, such as calling a captain a “lazy fat f—” and describing another employee as an “a–hole.”
Individual staffers also complained that Antill made inappropriate comments related to religion, politics and millennials.
Antill denied making most of the remarks, said other comments were jokes and defended some of his statements, according to the internal affairs investigation.
Harris County Sheriff’s Major Quincy Whitaker concluded Antill had violated department policies relating to discrimination in the workplace, harassment and threatening, abusive, vulgar or insulting language. In August 2022, Antill received a five-day suspension and six months of probation. Sheriff’s officials also ordered him to complete training courses on diversity and inclusion, racial bias and respectful communication.
Antill then exercised his right to appeal the punishment to Gonzalez, who had the power to reduce, increase or affirm the sanction. Four months later, Gonzalez opted to fire Antill.
“After careful consideration of the allegations, investigative findings, and your own representations during the appeal, I have concluded that the conduct at issue is not befitting of an executive leader of the Sheriff’s Office and is not reflective of the high standards of conduct that I expect for this organization,” Gonzalez wrote.
Sheriff’s office officials declined to answer additional questions for this article about Antill’s time at the agency.
Still on the job
Stinebaker said Antill approached the district attorney’s office director of information technology after learning of his termination, pitching the idea of continuing work he had been doing at the sheriff’s office to improve 911 call accessibility.
Within two weeks of his sheriff’s office tenure ending, Antill submitted a job application to the district attorney’s office.
In it, Antill trumpeted his leadership of 60-plus information technology professionals at the sheriff’s office, where he reported earning about $138,000 annually. Antill also noted his four-year tenure as the Harris County Clerk’s director of information technology and his work as national director of a “nationally recognized nonprofit.” The unnamed organization, True the Vote, is a conservative election-monitoring agency known for making false claims about election fraud.
When asked in his application for his “reason for leaving” the sheriff’s office, Antill wrote “leadership changes.” He did not elaborate further.
Two weeks later, Antill received an offer for a short-term business process analyst position designed to last through the end of September. His employment started on Feb. 6, according to his personnel file.
Three weeks after that, Stevens’ human resources memo went to Ogg’s top brass.
Stinebaker said agency officials initially believed Antill’s account that he was fired after getting a new supervisor. He added that the agency runs a criminal background check on potential employees and considers each applicant on a case-by-case basis.
Harris County Human Resources and Risk Management officials said personnel files are not automatically shared when a current or former county employee applies for a job with another agency, though they can be obtained through a public records request.
Antill’s position, which is funded by federal pandemic stimulus legislation, has been extended to September 2024, Stinebaker said. He is expected to continue working from his isolated office.
Antill’s personnel file from the district attorney’s office contains no records indicating he has faced complaints about his workplace conduct since his hiring.
“He does not work with anybody,” Stinebaker said. “He is literally by himself. He supervises no one. He has no colleagues. He has no (district attorney’s office) colleagues that he works with, because he’s not even in our office.”
Update, Dec. 27, 12 p.m.: This story has been updated to include the corrected information about Robert “Mark” Antill’s working conditions provided by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office after publication of this article.
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