This gets into some deep lore about the Paxton crime saga.
Best mugshot ever
Attorney General Ken Paxton will face lawyers for the men who accused him of securities fraud seven years ago in a one-hour deposition after the November elections.
The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday that Collin County District Court Judge Cynthia Wheless ordered Paxton to sit for the deposition on Nov. 28, three weeks after the culmination of Paxton’s reelection race. He is running against Democrat Rochelle Garza.
Paxton did not immediately respond to requests for comment through his government or campaign offices. Phil Hilder, the lawyer representing Paxton in his securities fraud case, declined comment.
[…]
The deposition is part of a lawsuit that is separate but related to the seven-year-old securities fraud indictment in which two men, Byron Cook and Joel Hochberg, accuse Paxton of encouraging them to invest in McKinney-based technology company Servergy Inc., without disclosing he would make a commission from those investments. Cook is a former state legislator who served in the Texas House with Paxton.
A year after Paxton was indicted on three felony charges alleging securities law violations, an associate of his, Charles “Chip” Loper III, sued Cook and Hochberg, accusing them of creating a scheme to profit off the investment funds of Unity Resources, a mineral assets company. Loper said the scheme hurt him and his father financially.
Cook and Hochberg’s lawyers said that lawsuit was retaliatory. Last year, they were able to add Paxton as a “responsible third party” to the case by arguing that he was also an investor and the company’s lawyer. As such, they said, Paxton should be held responsible for any alleged wrongdoing.
In a deposition in the Unity case, Cook and Hochberg’s lawyers can ask Paxton about his other securities fraud case.
Here’s the origin story of this part of the crime timeline. This branch eventually led to SEC charges that Paxton subsequently beat; you will note that the SEC took two cracks at him. The lawsuit that this story is based on is one of two that were later filed by Paxton buddies against Cook and Hochberg. The other was filed by Paxton’s pastor, a fellow named Mike Buster. I had completely forgotten about all of that – those two lawsuits were filed in 2017, which is to say approximately 372 years ago – and as far as I can tell from my archives this is the first update I’ve seen since then. I have no idea what to expect, and I’m a little confused by the reference to Paxton’s “other securities case” in the story. I suppose it means the federal case that got dismissed, but who knows. We’ll find out a bit after Thanksgiving, I hope.