WACO (September 8, 2010)—A lawyer representing the congressional campaign of Bryan businessman Bill Flores sent a letter Wednesday to Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, demanding that Edwards stop airing an ad that claims Flores helped run a company that laid off 3,000 workers as the result of a merger.

In the letter, Chris K. Gober says the ad “crosses the line from misleading to defamatory.”

Edwards says Flores was the chief financial officer and senior vice president of Western Atlas at the time the company merged with Baker Hughes in August 1998 and that he continued to work with Baker Hughes after the merger was closed through December 1998.

In the aftermath of the merger, 3,600 workers of the two merged companies were laid off, Edwards says, and certain corporate officers of the two companies were paid millions of dollars.

But Gober says Flores played no role in the layoffs.

“It appears that you, your campaign, your agents, and/or your representatives either (a) ignored important facts related to this matter or (b) concocted a maliciously incorrect interpretation of the documents related to the acquisition, the effect of which was intended to misstate Mr. Flores’s actual role in the Baker Hughes layoffs,” the letter says.

In the letter, Gober demands that Edwards direct all TV stations currently airing the ad to stop and that he stop making reference to “these false claims” and says failure to do so will be the basis for a defamation lawsuit.

The Edwards campaign, however, called the lawsuit threat “frivolous” and reiterated its demand that Flores release his 1998 and 1999 tax returns to prove that he didn’t benefit personally from the merger and the layoffs.