This is the tip of a scandal.

tl;dr - Court (judge, asst da, baliffs) are alleged using many racial slurs. Journalist asks attorney to open records (using open records act), and his attorney is sued. Suit dropped, but attorney is billed $16k for lawyers fees. To fight back against fees, the attorney subpoena's records of payment.

Looks like the charges are coverups for blatantly racist acts. I could be wrong, but "Weaver said the identify fraud allegations came out of her concern that Thomason would use the banking information on those checks for himself." seems to speak very very defensively and not factually based.