Just shy of a month before his trial, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton entered into a deal with prosecutors that allows him to avoid his day in court over the nearly nine-year-long securities fraud case against him.

The terms of the 18-month pretrial intervention agreement were laid out during a Tuesday morning hearing before Harris County District Judge Andrea Beall. They include restitution of $271,000, 100 hours of community service in Collin County, and 15 hours of legal ethics courses.

Not only does Paxton avoid a possible criminal conviction with accompanying jail time and loss of his law license, but he admitted no guilt under this agreement.

Special prosecutors Brian Wice and Jed Silverman will monitor Paxton. Wice noted that this differed from the typical defendant, who would be observed by a probation officer. He added that the prosecutors could terminate the agreement earlier if Paxton paid restitution sooner and abided by the conditions.

“At the end of the day, while I think the case could be made that justice was certainly delayed, I think the agreement we reached today underscores the fact that justice was not denied to the victims in this case, to Mr. Paxton, and ultimately to the people of the state of Texas,” Wice said.

According to Wice, Paxton will pay restitution to former state representative Bryon Cook, Cook’s wife and Joel Hochberg's estate for their Servergy investments, the McKinney-based technology company at the center of the case.

Wice said the difference between this pretrial intervention agreement and the one initially proposed was that the former didn’t have any of the consequential provisions, while this deal did. He added that the agreement doubled the amount of community service initially proposed and included more legal education instead of one course in securities fraud.
Ultimately, Wice said the re-interviewing and interviewing of nearly a dozen witnesses was the game-changer that led to Tuesday’s decision.

“As a result of that intensive interviewing and re-interviewing process, we had a sense of what these cases were and, more importantly, what these cases weren’t,” he said.

Defense Attorney Dan Cogdell reaffirmed that the agreement between the attorney general and the state was not a plea deal, and Paxton maintained his previous not-guilty plea. Cogdell said that the charges Paxton faced would eventually be dropped per the agreement's conditions.

“The case will be dismissed. There will never be a conviction, and Ken Paxton—at least today—can go back and do what he should have been doing all along, which is representing the state of Texas,” Cogdell said.

“This was a case that we believed, in fact, we knew from the beginning they couldn’t prove,” he added. “It was a case on day one that we knew they couldn’t prove, and on year nine, we still knew they couldn’t prove.”

According to Cogdell, Paxton was the only person in history to be prosecuted criminally after he paid a $1,000 administrative fee for failing to register with the state securities regulators.

Beall asserted that if Paxton were to violate any agreement terms, both parties would be back in the Houston courtroom. A pretrial intervention does not require the presiding judge’s approval.

Paxton was present during proceedings, as he has been on his other court dates since the case returned to Harris County. He sat with defense attorney Philip Hilder while he signed the pages of the deal. After agreeing and saying he understood the terms of the deal, the attorney general exited the courtroom through the back door.
The news of a possible pretrial intervention agreement was reported by the Austin American Statesman ahead of Tuesday’s pretrial conference after sources close to the case discussed the possibility that prosecutors would dismiss the charges Paxton faced if he complied with the conditions of a potential deal.

The attorney general has pleaded not guilty to two first-degree felony securities fraud charges and one third-degree felony charge. Paxton was indicted for allegedly soliciting investors in Servergy Inc. without disclosing that he was being paid to promote its stock and failing to register with state securities regulators.

Last month, Cogdell referred to discussions regarding pretrial intervention that he would've accepted if offered. However, Cogdell said there were no ongoing plea negotiations, adding that Paxton never entertained the idea of pleading guilty.

Wice had previously stated that he did not believe a pretrial intervention was a fair justice or appropriate disposition, given the facts and circumstances of this case and the defendant. He referred to the possibility as “worse than a slap on the wrist.”

Paxton’s legal team had attempted to get the charges against the attorney general thrown out after filing a motion to get them dropped during a previous pretrial conference, citing Paxton’s constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The case has faced yearslong delays caused by relocations from Collin County — where it originated — to Harris County, Paxton’s impeachment proceedings in the Texas Senate and the ongoing dispute regarding prosecutorial pay.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to take action in January on the disagreement over prosecutorial pay. Wice and former prosecutor Kent Schaffer have not received compensation for their time on the case since 2016.

In a previous ruling, Beall indicated that she would not issue new payment orders to comply with the Collin County fee schedule because the cap it set was “wholly unreasonable” in this case. On Tuesday, Wice said the dispute is in the Houston-based First Court of Appeals.

Without Tuesday's agreement, Paxton would have gone to trial as scheduled on Monday, April 15. If convicted, he could have faced fines and up to 99 years in prison.

Although this long-standing case has been resolved, Paxton is involved in additional ongoing legal challenges in Travis County over allegations by his former top deputies that he abused his office to assist real estate developer Nate Paul and at the federal level regarding his involvement in allegedly attempting to interfere with the November 2020 election.