Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and prosecutors agreed on a deal to end his 9-year-old security fraud case. The 18-month pretrial intervention agreement will allow Paxton to walk away from the case with no charges if he meets the deal's requirements, which include serving 100 hours of community service, enrolling in 15 hours of legal ethics training and paying $271,000 in restitution to investors who put money in a Dallas-area tech startup based on Paxton's solicitations, reports USA Today. “The State approached us, and General Paxton is happy to agree to the terms of the dismissal," said Dan Cogdell, Paxton's attorney. "The agreement allows him to get back to representing the citizens of the State of Texas ... 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."
The three felony charges issued by a grand jury in 2015 stem from allegations that Paxton sought the investments without disclosing that the company, Servergy, was paying him $100,000 in company stock for each referral. Special prosecutor Brian Wice said the state was "confident a Harris County jury would have found our proof beyond a reasonable doubt," though he cautioned that three outcomes could have been reached "and two are bad — a hung jury or not guilty." The case took nine years to resolve because "this case was a perfect storm of everything that could have derailed and delayed a prosecution," Wice said, citing Hurricane Harvey's destruction in Houston causing the courthouse to close in 2017 and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Wice said there also was a year's worth of pretrial litigation by Paxton, and previous judges "didn't do what we pay Harris County district judges to do: rule on motions timely."
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