Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai fired one of his top staffers in December over flirtatious texts the staffer sent to the publisher of an East Side newspaper — messages the publisher said made her feel “creeped out,” according to county documents and interviews conducted by the San Antonio Express-News.
Jim Lefko, Sakai’s communications director, had been talking with staff of the San Antonio Observer, a weekly news tabloid, in an effort to generate support for a plan to revitalize the grounds of the county-owned Freeman Coliseum on the East Side.
In November, Observer CEO Waseem Ali sent Lefko an email expressing concern about texts Lefko had sent to Stephanie Zarriello, Ali’s wife and the weekly’s publisher…