In a rare hearing Wednesday night, the City of San Antonio’s Ethics Review Board ruled that Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) abused his position when he tried to get local law enforcement to respond to a local attorney’s home this spring.

Local attorney Martin Phipps accused the D10 councilman of abusing his power; Whyte says he was concerned about a child’s safety

Martin Phipps filed his complaint against Whyte on May 21, claiming Whyte had used his position to “dispatch” San Antonio Police officers and Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies to Phipps’ home on April 26 to try to remove a child.

A local attorney has accused Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) of abusing his position as a councilman to “interfere” in a private custody matter.

The woman returned to the United States last month and filed for annulment of her marriage to Phipps, the warrant states. Phipps’ arrest is the latest gaffe for the attorney leading Bexar County’s opioid litigation. AdHis law partner, T.J. Mayes, resigned earlier this year as part of a mass exodus from the firm Phipps Mayes. A lawsuit filed in Tarrant County late last month states that Phipps’ firm owes an Arlington-area marketing company more than $344,000 for unpaid invoices. A Bexar County spokeswoman declined to comment last week on the issues surrounding Phipps’ law firm.

SAN ANTONIO – Editor’s note: This story was published through a partnership between the San Antonio Business Journal and KSAT. A subsidiary of PNC Bank has repossessed the private jet plane formerly belonging to San Antonio lawyer Martin Phipps for failure to make payments on the loan that financed it, according to federal court documents. PNC Equipment Finance LLC sued Phipps and his former firm, Phipps Anderson Deacon LLP, in August 2020 alleging that the attorney had defaulted on $1.7 million of a loan for a Gulfstream GIV-SP. In November, PNC repossessed the plane and sold it at auction for $2.8 million, according to federal court documents. Read more on this story at the San Antonio Business Journal.