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Where should Texas AG Ken Paxton be tried for alleged securities fraud? Appeals court to decide

Paxton, who faces George P. Bush in the Republican runoff, has been under active indictment for securities fraud since 2015. He has been fighting to have the case moved back to Collin County.

Update:
at 2:05 p.m. with comment from Ken Paxton’s lawyer.

AUSTIN — The state’s top appeals court on Wednesday agreed to take up the question of where Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should be tried for alleged securities fraud, a small victory for prosecutors pursuing the criminal cases against the Republican official.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will settle whether Paxton’s trials should be held in Collin County, where the attorney general’s legal team would like to make their case, or in Harris County. Special prosecutor Brian Wice on Wednesday said a lower court decision to move the case to Collin County was a mistake.

“We’re confident today’s decision means the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree,” Wice said in a statement.

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Paxton, a Republican, has been under active indictment for the majority of his time in statewide office.

A Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton in 2015 for allegedly persuading friends to invest in a McKinney technology company called Servergy Inc. without telling them he received 100,000 shares of stock. He was charged with two first-degree felonies tied to those allegations. He was charged with a third-degree felony, for allegedly funneling clients to a friend’s investment firm without being registered with the state.

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The prosecutors have said they will try Paxton for the charges separately.

If convicted, Paxton could face two to 10 years in prison for the third-degree felony and five to 99 years for each of the first-degree felonies, as well as fines. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

In 2017, the cases against Paxton were moved after a judge previously presiding over the case agreed with prosecutors that they might struggle to get a impartial jury in Collin County, where the alleged crimes took place but also where Paxton lived and worked for decades.

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Paxton’s lawyers took issue with the move to Harris County, which politically is more liberal. They challenged the decision by arguing that the judge’s time presiding over the case had already expired when he made it. In summer 2021, a Houston appeals court agreed with Paxton that Collin County was the proper venue for the cases against him and that any subsequent trials should be held there.

The prosecutors asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider that decision. It put the move on hold last year, and now will formally take up the issue and make the final decision on where the trials should be held.

Members of Paxton’s legal team said Wednesday that they are confident the court will agree with previous decisions in their client’s favor.

“We believe that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is taking up the venue issues to finally resolve them in Mr. Paxton’s favor. Just as two Harris County District Judges (in separate rulings) resolved them in Mr. Paxton’s favor, and then six of eight Court of Appeals justices also resolved them in Mr. Paxton’s favor,” Michael Mowla said in a statement.

Paxton, who was re-elected to a second term as attorney general in 2018, twice fought off federal civil charges also tied to these same securities fraud allegations.

He also faces FBI investigation for allegedly abusing his office to help a political donor named Nate Paul. His agency is also fighting a whistleblower lawsuit from several former top staffers who brought the abuse of office allegations to light.

The news comes the day after Paxton failed to win the GOP primary election for attorney general outright and was pushed into a runoff with Land Commissioner George P. Bush. The runoff election is May 24.