The Harris County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday it has dismissed four felony indictments against Republican megadonor Steven Hotze for his alleged involvement in an attack on an air conditioning repairman in 2020.
The repairman was held at gunpoint during a search for fraudulent voter mail-in ballots that did not exist. Prosecutors alleged at the time that Hotze was involved in the crime, saying that while he was not present, he paid a former Houston police captain to engage in the attack.
Hotze was accused of unlawful restraint, two counts of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, and engaging in organized crime.
Although all the charges against Hotze were dismissed by Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare on Tuesday, the DA’s office will pursue two of five original charges against former Houston police captain Mark Aguirre.
The dismissals are the latest in a litany of charges brought by former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg only to be dropped by her successor or another jurisdiction. To date this year, Harris County taxpayers have covered at least $1.5 million in wasted legal fees for public officials Ogg targeted while working as the top prosecutor.
Ogg was ousted by Teare in a 2024 primary.
“As we review more cases filed under the previous administration, a pattern has become quite clear: The former district attorney abused the authority of this office to overcharge and investigate those she disagreed with and outsourced high-profile criminal investigations to friends who shared her political views,” Teare said Tuesday in an emailed statement. “That’s not justice and so long as I’m DA, that’s not how we will do business in Harris County.”
Though Ogg has a documented history of attacking public officials in her own Democratic Party, Hotze is a well-known GOP ally and donor.
An April 2022 indictment charged that Hotze hired more than a dozen private investigators to look for voter fraud in Harris County ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
One such investigator, Aguirre, was charged with using his vehicle to run an air conditioning repairman off the road and holding him at gunpoint in October 2020. Prosecutors at the time said Hotze paid him to do it.
Aguirre at the time allegedly told another HPD officer that the repairman’s truck contained 750,000 fraudulent mail ballots prepared by Democrats but the truck contained only air conditioning equipment, the Texas Tribune reported in 2022. Hotze said through an attorney at the time that Aguirre asked him for funds to investigate alleged election fraud and Hotze obliged but knew nothing of the incident with the HVAC repairman until he saw it in the media.
In August 2024, after Ogg lost the primary to current DA Teare, she filed more felony charges against Hotze, which some say were parting shots she left for Teare’s office to dispose of.
Aguirre’s charges, filed between 2020 and 2024, include aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (a firearm), aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (a motor vehicle); unlawful restraint causing serious bodily injury; aggravated robbery; and engaging in organized crime, according to a press release issued by Teare’s office on Tuesday.
Teare said he would pursue the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (a firearm) and unlawful restraint charges against Aguirre. A hearing is tentatively set for August 21.
“After an exhaustive review of the evidence, the [Harris County DA’s Office] has determined that the State cannot prove any of the remaining charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt and that those charges should not have been filed,” Teare said in a statement.
The DA added that the charges stemmed from a “baseless voter fraud conspiracy scheme that culminated in a roadside confrontation alleged to have been committed by Mark Aguirre on an innocent HVAC repairman in October 2020.”
“This deeply troubling case shows how toxic conspiracy theories can fuel real-world violence that endangers people in our community,” Teare said. “We look forward to vigorously prosecuting the remaining charges in this case that stand up to legal scrutiny. However, unlike the previous administration, we believe ethical prosecutors have a responsibility to do so based on facts — not political theater, media spectacle, or the reckless pursuit of headlines.”
Aguirre’s attorney Terry Yates said Tuesday he filed a motion to dismiss the remaining charges based on prosecutorial misconduct and discovery abuse. He added it’s been “a pleasure” to work with Teare’s public integrity unit, which shared information that Ogg’s office “hid from us for years.”
“We’re grateful for the cases that have been dismissed and looking forward to going forward either on this motion [to dismiss] or seeking a resolution for Captain Aguirre on the other cases,” Yates said.
Hotze also thanked Teare for dismissing the criminal charges, which his attorney Jared Woodfill referred to as “almost laughable.”
“For the last four years, Kim Ogg has waged warfare against me because of my efforts to ensure voter integrity in Harris County, and I thank God that today I was vindicated,” Hotze said. “I have no regrets in my efforts to stop voter fraud in Harris County. I am committed to continue to do that and I am just getting fired up.”
Unbeknownst to the Teare administration, a notice of intent to seek hate crime enhancements in all cases pending against Aguirre and Hotze was filed by Warren Diepraam, an outside contract prosecutor hired by Ogg on January 2, 2025, officials said Tuesday.
“These enhancements were found to be meritless, and the notices will be withdrawn,” Teare said.
Woodfill blasted the former DA and credited Teare’s office for looking at the “exact same facts” and determining there was no case against Hotze worthy of prosecution.
“After four years of fighting the Ogg administration, a district attorney’s office that had been weaponized in an effort to take out a political opponent, finally today Dr. Hotze was vindicated,” Woodfill said. “We knew from day one that Dr. Hotze hadn’t done anything wrong, but Kim Ogg and her administration was doing everything they could to try to get the headlines to make Dr. Hotze look bad and cost him a whole lot of money.”
Yates, who worked in the DA’s office under longtime prosecutor Johnny Holmes, said Teare’s administration appears to be looking at cases on merit rather than the political party of the accused.
“What I’ve seen from his administration in the five months he’s been in there is that they’re ethical, they’re thorough, and they’re cleaning up a lot of messes from the prior administration,” he said.
