FBI Raids In Houston, Laredo, Raise Questions [UPDATE]

HOUSTON, TX -- The necessity of a series of coordinated raids by federal agents at Dennenbaum Engineering offices in Houston, Laredo, and other fracilotiies in Texas is raising questions.

In a statement released Friday, Joel Androphy, of berg and Andrphy, ande cosel for Dannenbaum Engineering, said the company was being fully cooperative with federal authorities regarding the collection of materials from offices in Houston, Laredo, San Antonio, and McAllen.

However, Androphy said the raids were a bit troubling as well as surprising.

“I have been communicating with federal authorities for weeks and they never requested any company documents. I personally advised several Houston FBI agents yesterday that, if asked, the company would have voluntarily produced all of the seized records," he said in a statement Friday.

FBI agents conducted a raid at Dannenbaum Engineering offices in the 3100 block of Alabama Street Wednesday late morning as part of what they called a law enforcement operation.

Employees inside the building were ordered to leave the building and to take nothing with them, as agens came into the building.

The FBI has declined to comment on the scope of this law enforcement operation.

"I can confirm FBI personnel are present at that location conducting a lawful law enforcement operation. No arrests have been made," FBI spokesperson Shauna Dunlap said in a statement.

Dannenbaum Engineering has done extensive work with municpalities for decades includng and flood control and sewer projects in Harris County, as well as bridge engineering projects, and construction and renovation at the Port of Houston.

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While there have been controversies over the last decade involving Dannenbaum, the FBI has never indicated what led to the raids earlier this week, and none of the raids resulted in any arrests.

Androphy said the raids only seemed to served the purpose of producing maximum news coverage, and paint Dannenbaum Engineering in a bad light.

“As we continue to cooperate with the federal government, we also are reviewing options for seeking an investigation and federal ethics probe of whether federal employees leaked sensitive investigative information for news coverage that led to clearly false information about the company being published by at least one national news organization," he said.

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