Lena Smith, named in a 2025 search warrant in the payroll investigation of Carmen P. Turner, was terminated Thursday as court coordinator in the 434th District Court.
Friday, October 23
Lena Smith, a sister of Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector Carmen P. Turner, was fired Thursday from her job as a court coordinator in the 434th District Court. The firing came the same day the Falcon reported that a federal grand jury had issued a capias for Turner’s arrest.
District Judge J. Christian Becerra, who presides over the 434th, told the Falcon that Smith was terminated at 11:30 a.m. Smith coordinated the docket for the court’s associate judge, Argie Brame.
Smith has not been charged with a crime. But search warrants filed in Fort Bend County district court show that investigators with the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division seized two of her phones on Sept. 2, 2025. One was her personal iPhone; the other was a county-issued phone taken from her office.
The next day, 400th District Judge Edward Krenek signed a warrant authorizing investigators to search Smith’s personal phone for evidence of her or Turner’s participation in abuse of official capacity. The warrant was filed with the district clerk on Oct. 15, 2025.
The investigation
Prosecutors allege that from October 2023 to June 2024, Turner put two women on the Tax Office payroll who instead spent their workdays caring for her mother, Cornelia Smith. The care took place at Lena Smith’s Houston apartment. The two caregivers were paid a combined $27,020.56 in county wages during that period, according to an affidavit.
Testifying under oath on Sept. 2, 2025, Smith confirmed that her mother lived with her and that paid caregivers came to her home while she was at work. She also identified Turner as one of her sisters. But she said she never saw the caregivers, did not know their names, and left home before they arrived each day, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit describes evidence that appears to conflict with that account. One caregiver told investigators that Smith was sometimes at the apartment when she arrived and that the two discussed her mother’s care. Messages on the caregiver’s phone show a contact saved as Smith sending the apartment’s Wi-Fi password and instructions for the gate. In another message, the contact asked whether “mama” needed medication that night, the affidavit says. The caregiver also described a group text with Turner, Smith and their siblings that she used for questions about their mother’s care.
The investigator wrote that location data from Smith’s phone was relevant to “determine the credibility” of her statement that she was never home when the caregivers were there.
Her county career
Smith joined the Fort Bend County District Clerk’s Office on March 11, 2019, at $18.06 an hour, according to county employment records. She left on Dec. 31, 2020, as a senior deputy district clerk earning $18.65 an hour.
The next day, Jan. 1, 2021, she started as court coordinator in the 434th, the same day Becerra took the bench. The job is exempt from overtime and paid $33.97 an hour, roughly $70,700 a year. Her current rate is $45.82 an hour, or about $95,300 a year.
The Fort Bend Falcon asked Judge Becerra why he fired Smith Thursday.
“I took an oath to faithfully execute the duties of my office,” Becerra said. “Smith was fired for failing to fulfill the responsibilities and expectations of her position.”
This story is developing.