Conservative activist Steven Hotze ha s been charged with two more felonies in connection to a bizarre 2020 confrontation that left an air conditioning repairman facing the barrel of a gun held by a man investigating conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
The aggravated robbery and engaging organized criminal activity charges double the number of allegations Hotze was already facing over a 2020 incident where a private investigator, Mark Aguirre, is accused of tailing and attacking the repairman, wrongfully believing that he had thousands of fraudulent ballots in his vehicle.
According to court records, Hotze on Aug. 19 was indicted by a Harris County grand jury on the two new counts. Hotze on Thursday made his first court appearance in connection to the new charges, and had new bond conditions set.
The indictments allege Hotze, Aguirre and “unknown third person or persons” conspired to threaten Lopez-Zuniga bodily injury and used a gun to threaten him.
Hotze and Aguirre were already charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful restraint related to the same Oct. 19, 2020, incident. Those two charges — which they’ve pleaded not guilty to — are still pending, according to court records.
Aguirre was also previously charged with a second count of aggravated assault over the alleged intentional car crash.
While Aguirre is named in the Hotze indictment for organized criminal activity, he hadn’t been charged as of Friday, according to court records.
Hotze’s attorney, Jared Woodfill, called the new indictment “lawfare” and said it was an example of District Attorney Kim Ogg, who spoke at a Tea Party event Thursday and has endorsed Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, “punishing someone for their political views”.
[…]
Aguirre was hired by Hotze’s Liberty Center for God and Country to investigate a conspiracy theory that Democrats had collected fraudulent ballots leading up to the November 2020 presidential election, according to prosecutors.
Hotze has derided the previous charges as “bogus” and denied that he was at the scene of the confrontation. In July, Hotze’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges, accusing the DA’s office of hiding documents and collaborating with the attorney representing Lopez-Zuniga in a separate civil lawsuit.
Around the same time, Aguirre’s attorney filed a motion to sever his criminal case from Hotze’s and argued that the two needed to be tried separately so that Aguirre’s lawyers could potentially cross-examine Hotze as a witness in a trial.
District Judge Robert Johnson hadn’t ruled on either of the motions as of Friday.
Settle in for a brief recounting of the background:
The real danger of unhinged conspiracy theories
Hotze spews some BS
Aguirre’s arraingment
A closer look at the Aguirre/Hotze debacle
AC repairman sues Hotze
Aguirre indicted
Another look at the Aguirre/Hotze debacle
Hotze indicted for his bogus “voter fraud investigation”
Oh yeah, Hotze knew all about the Aguirre attack
Today is a court day for Steven Hotze
The Chron drops a big Hotze story
That’s not even all of it, but you get the idea. That last one is from last January, and the one before from October 2022, so this case has been moving along slowly; I presume the civil case will wait until there’s a verdict or plea in the criminal case. My three main takeaways are 1) lock him up; 2) damn, this is taking a long time, and; 3) Jared Woodfill’s complaint about Kim Ogg being mean to Hotze, put alongside Ogg’s recent political activities, may be the funniest thing Jared Woodfill has ever said or done. Now let’s get moving on this.
4) Mr. Lopez-Zuniga needs to get a nice big civil settlement, enough to buy his own AC business, or to retire comfortably, or both.