Paxton, who will not have to enter a plea under the terms of the agreement, faced the prospect of decades in prison if he had been convicted of fraud.
Prosecutors on Tuesday agreed to drop the securities fraud charges facing Attorney General Ken Paxton if he performs 100 hours of community service and fulfills other conditions of a pretrial agreement, bringing an abrupt end to the nearly nine-year-old felony case that has loomed over the embattled Republican since his early days in office.
The deal, which landed three weeks before Paxton is set to face trial, also requires him to take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay restitution to those he is accused of defrauding more than a decade ago when he allegedly solicited investors in a McKinney technology company without disclosing that the firm was paying him to promote its stock. The amount of restitution totals about $271,000, prosecutor Brian Wice said.
Here’s what the prosecutor had to say:
Wice said he had been “besieged by a torrent of phone calls” from people who have “expressed their monumental displeasure with the fact that these cases are being resolved with a pretrial intervention.” Touting the restitution Paxton now owes to his alleged victims, Wice said it was more important to secure justice for them than to pursue prison time for Paxton, which he said should only be a priority if the defendant poses a threat to public safety.
“I appreciate your concern,” Wice said of those criticizing the outcome. “With all due respect, your truth is not the truth. You know one half of 1 percent of what [fellow prosecutor] Mr. [Jed] Silverman and I know about the facts of these cases. And the fact that all of these people have registered their monumental displeasure with what happened in these cases, I submit, probably should have been directed at the ballot box.”
I’m not sure I understand his angle here. Is 271k of restitution more important than holding Texas’ top law enforcement official responsible for crimes he’s charged with?
Wice said it was more important to
secure justice for themprotect his relationship with his corrupt boss than to pursue prison time for Paxton
Fixed it for him
