Appeals court rejects bid to throw out fraud indictment against Texas AG
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
A Texas appellate court refused to throw out a felony indictment against the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The Dallas Morning News Trail Blazers Blog reported Thursday that the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas, sitting en banc, ruled unanimously that Paxton must stand trial on three felony fraud indictments. The Texas AG, who was elected in January 2015, was indicted last July for securities fraud after allegedly persuading people to invest in a North Texas tech startup without disclosing that he had not invested in the company and had been paid in stocks.
The court rejected Paxton’s arguments that the judge overseeing the grand jury that indicted him had acted improperly, and that one of the state laws he is accused of breaking is pre-empted by federal law. Writing for the unanimous court, Chief Justice Carolyn Wright ruled that the court could not consider Paxton’s claim about the judge at this time, and held that his pre-emption argument “lacks merit.”
“We are gratified but not surprised that just three weeks after oral argument, the en banc court of appeals unanimously concluded that Mr. Paxton’s claims were clearly without merit,” the special prosecutors handling the case said. “We are confident that the Court of Criminal Appeals will reject Mr. Paxton’s next round of appeals as surely and as swiftly as the court of appeals did today.”
Paxton’s legal team has not decided whether they will appeal the ruling. “The court did not hold that Mr. Paxton’s main claims were without merit, rather were premature at this stage of the proceedings,” Paxton’s defense attorney Philip Hilder said. “Respectfully, we disagree that these fundamental flaws cannot be challenged pretrial and will evaluate in coming days whether to raise these issues with the Court of Criminal Appeals.”
In the meantime, Paxton will face several other legal challenges. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud complaint against Paxton in April over the same alleged conduct. Paxton also faces a disciplinary complaint before the State Bar for supporting county clerks who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to their religious beliefs.
