It’s clear that Fort Bend County Judge KP George and District Attorney Brian Middleton don’t like each other, and their conflict has grown increasingly messy since the DA indicted the judge on misdemeanor charges of identity misrepresentation and felony charges of money laundering.
Once friendly colleagues, the elected officials are now adversaries embattled in a showdown using legal motions and an ever-growing witness list as their weapons.
George made two court appearances this week for pre-trial hearings and a third is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday. On Monday, he appeared before Judge Maggie Jaramillo in the 458th District Court on the state’s motion to address “flagrant misrepresentations by the defendant’s attorneys” in the felony case.
Attorney Terry Yates from George’s team was assigned to argue the case but was sick so the hearing was postponed to Friday.
Middleton’s office has asked that George’s attorney Jared Woodfill be sanctioned — which can include anything from a verbal reprimand to disbarment — for numerous reasons.
For example, Woodfill cites case law, DeLay v. State, in a motion to quash indictments, asserting that the U.S. Supreme Court warned in the DeLay ruling that “recasting [a] campaign finance reporting violation as money laundering introduces severe criminal penalties into the political arena and could chill protected political participation. Donors and campaign workers would think twice if routine financial mistakes or omissions might be escalated to laundering charges.”
However, nothing in the above quoted passage appears in the DeLay opinion, Middleton’s office wrote in a 40-page response to the motion to quash.
“George’s attorneys’ habitual and unabashed disregard for the truth is not limited to their recitations of the law; it extends equally to their representations of fact,” the DA’s response states. “In their motion to dismiss alleging prosecutorial misconduct, George’s attorneys claim that the State ‘destroyed’ several minutes of witness interview that they claim ‘potentially’ contained exculpatory statements. This assertion is false, and they know it.”
Woodfill unsuccessfully petitioned that both cases against George be dismissed or, at the very least, Middleton be disqualified from prosecuting them. Middleton’s office hired special prosecutor Brian Wice to assist but not replace the DA. Wice will be paid with asset forfeiture funds, not taxpayer money, according to the DA’s office.
During a brief closed-door conference between representatives from the DA’s office and George and Woodfill on Monday, prosecutors brought up that after they repeatedly made clear in open court last week that Wice was not being paid for with taxpayer funds, a social media post went up on George’s campaign account declaring that Middleton hired Wice at the cost of $300 per hour, “just the tip of the iceberg that will likely cost Fort Bend County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Wesley Wittig, second assistant DA and a spokesman for the office, said after the meeting that Woodfill agreed the post would come down immediately.
“We’d already said it wasn’t true, so we addressed that with Mr. Woodfill, that the information was a blatant misrepresentation and a lie, and he said he’d have Mr. George pull it down immediately, so there was no need to address that issue further,” Wittig said.
That’s one of the only things the lawyers have agreed on since the legal saga began last year.
“Another part of this motion is asking for sanctions because of Mr. Woodfill’s blatant misrepresentations of law and fact, and that is going to be heard Friday,” Wittig said. “Misrepresentation to the court and to the public has been rife throughout all of the defense filings.”
Wittig told the Houston Press on Monday that Wice was brought on because he’s an expert in “media, contempt and the very things that we’re talking about today, these misrepresentations.”
“Our attorneys are focused on the trial and the merits, and Mr. Wice is working on these pre-trial motions,” he said.
On Tuesday, George appeared before Judge Teana Watson in County Court 5 on motions to disqualify the DA and dismiss him for misconduct in the misdemeanor case.
Judge Watson denied the motions. Similar motions were denied last week on the felony case.
George will go to trial on January 6 for the misdemeanor charge that he worked with his former chief of staff Taral Patel to fake racist attacks against his own campaign on social media. His felony trial for money laundering is set to begin February 3.
The judge and the DA, once friendly and once members of the same political party, have been at odds since last year, when Middleton charged George and Patel with identity misrepresentation, claiming they colluded to win favor with voters by making comments from fake Facebook profiles, including the now-infamous “Antonio Scalywag” account, during George’s re-election campaign in 2022.
Patel, who made a failed bid for county commissioner last year, pleaded guilty in April and was sentenced to probation.
During the course of the investigation into the social media hoax, prosecutors say they uncovered information that George had allegedly used campaign funds to make a down payment on a home and buy an SUV for personal use, among other things. George was indicted in September 2024 on the misdemeanor identity misrepresentation case and in April 2025 for the felony money laundering.
George has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. His attorneys say he was not involved in the social media hoax and the campaign finance matter was due to an error in reporting. Although many called for his resignation, George remains the chief executive of Fort Bend County government, presiding over commissioners court and the county budget. He switched parties from Democrat to Republican in June.
Middleton, a Democrat, and George are both up for re-election in 2026.
In recent court filings, George accused Middleton of pursuing a political vendetta against him and committing prosecutorial misconduct by withholding evidence, including recorded conversations and text messages between the DA and Patel about the cases against George.
Middleton’s office responded by saying that the text messages were plucked from “hundreds of thousands” of communications, unrelated to Middleton’s prosecutorial or governmental duties and responsibilities.
Woodfill says he obtained screenshots through discovery of text-message conversations between Patel and Middleton that prove the DA knew about the social media hoax while it was going on. The DA’s office vehemently denies the accusation.
The attorney has requested the immediate cessation of encrypted, auto-deleting communication apps by the DA’s office and production of remaining electronic communications that haven’t yet been disclosed.
Wittig said Monday there’s no merit to any accusations of prosecutorial misconduct.
“The representations about the messaging or this idea of a conversation between Mr. Middleton and Mr. Patel regarding KP George, they have framed it such that it appears that happened after the prosecution began, and that’s absolutely false,” he said. “They are cherry-picking communications between political allies before these charges were ever filed.”
Wittig further noted that there’s nothing illegal about a DA messaging friends or coworkers about a case. “It’s a fairly common process,” he said. “Where it would be problematic is if the nature of that communication was evidentiary, but that’s not the case here. I can speak to another lawyer about a case, and it’s protected as a work product. That’s not discoverable.”
Woodfill said in a conversation with the Press last month that it makes sense that Patel got a “sweetheart deal” of probation because he was colluding with the district attorney.
“The emails show that [Middleton] was clearly complicit in the fake Facebook campaign, and if you look at the proffer, Patel makes it very clear that George didn’t know about the Antonio Scalywag account but he did say a lot of Democratic elected officials did know about it. It’s just shocking that Middleton would go after Judge George when he had been communicating with Patel regarding the exact same fake account, the Antonio Scalywag account.”
Again, the DA’s office vehemently denies the accusation.
Woodfill also took issue with Middleton allegedly saying in the text messages that he was willing to fight and “take down” his political adversaries. “It’s almost like a tax-funded mafioso over there,” Woodfill said. “If you cross them, then they will come after you and target you. Unfortunately for Judge George, he has been targeted.”
Wittig said Patel got an appropriate sentence. “He got it because he agreed to accept our plea instead of go to trial and he has agreed to be cooperative,” he said.
The DA’s office has not offered a plea deal to George. Wittig reiterated Monday that George and his attorneys are desperate to make the charges go away.
“There is no retaliation, no misconduct, and no evidence was destroyed or withheld,” he said.
The felony case against George, 61, carries a potential sentence of two to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $10,000. If George is convicted of a felony, he will immediately be removed from his post as county judge, Wittig said.
Prosecuting a case against another elected official who was once a friend has been challenging for the DA’s office, Wittig added.
“We know we’re doing the right thing, and we’re paying a price for it,” he said. “We’re proceeding to trial, and that’s where this will be decided.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.