Special prosecutors informed a Harris County judge that they will drop criminal charges against the Texas attorney general as part of a deal. NBC 5’s Phil Prazan has the details.
A nearly decade-long saga for Attorney General Ken Paxton comes to an end. Special prosecutors and Paxton's defense team informed a Harris County judge the three felony charges will be dismissed in a settlement. The attorney general was facing 99 years in prison if a jury convicted him.
Paxton's trial over securities fraud accusations began in Collin County more than nine years ago. A trial was scheduled in three weeks. That trial will no longer happen if Paxton serves 100 hours of community service, takes 15 hours of legal ethics classes, and pays more than $270,000 to two families who accused him of fraud.
The agreement does not affect Paxton’s law license, and it will allow Paxton to avoid a public airing of evidence against him.
“The State approached us, and General Paxton is happy to agree to the terms of the dismissal," Paxton's attorney Dan Cogdell said. "The agreement allows him to get back to representing the citizens of the State of Texas. But let me be clear, at no time was he going to enter any plea bargain agreement or admit to conduct that simply did not occur. There is no admission of any wrongdoing on Ken’s part in the agreement because there was no wrongdoing on his part."
Prosecutors charged Paxton for convincing two friends to put their money into a McKinney technology company called Servergy without telling them he was getting paid from the company. One of the people Paxton was accused of defrauding was former state Rep. Byron Cook.
Cook and the estate of Joel Hochberg, who passed away last year in Florida, thanked the prosecutors in a statement form their lawyer.
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Paxton cannot use campaign funds or tax dollars to repay Cook and Hochberg. He has to check in with the special prosecutors every sixty days until the eighteen month agreement is complete.
Back in 2015, Paxton was charged with two counts of securities fraud and one count of not being registered as an investment adviser. He pleaded not guilty. Paxton was also charged in a federal civil complaint filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his work with Servergy. But a federal judge in March 2017 dismissed the complaint against him.
“I am grateful to reach this agreement, to get this matter behind me, so I can get back to the work representing the State of Texas,” Paxton said in a statement.
The securities fraud case had been delayed for years during pre-trial disputes over trial location in the Dallas area or Houston, and payment for the state’s special prosecutors. The prosecutors argued most of those delays were caused by Paxton. Hurricane Harvey and COVID-19 also delayed the process.
An attempt by Paxton’s lawyers to throw out the charges against him because the years of delay had violated his right to a speedy trial was denied by Beall last month.
The securities fraud case has hung over Paxton nearly his entire time in statewide office. Yet Paxton, 61, has shown remarkable political resilience, maintaining and growing strong support among GOP activists on the state and national level, including from former President Donald Trump.
The criminal charges are among the myriad legal troubles that have long dogged Paxton over his three terms as one of the nation’s highest-profile state attorneys general. He was acquitted last year during a historic impeachment trial in the Texas Senate over accusations that he misused his office to help a wealthy donor.
However, a federal investigation has been probing some of the same charges presented in his impeachment.
He is also fighting efforts by former top aides to make him testify in a whistleblower civil lawsuit that also includes allegations central to the impeachment.
