Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s staff this month quietly dropped a series of human trafficking and child sexual assault cases after losing track of one of the victims, according to an AP investigation.
Gleason was fired less than two months into his new job as a law enforcement adviser. Paxton’s office has not disclosed why, but three people with knowledge of the matter said Gleason included child pornography in a work presentation at the agency’s Austin headquarters.
The people said Gleason displayed the video — which one of them described as showing a man raping a small child — in a misguided effort to underscore agency investigators' difficult work. It was met with outrage and caused the meeting to quickly dissolve. Afterward, Paxton’s top deputy, Brent Webster, told staff not to talk about what happened, according to one of the people. Gleason, who began his career as a police officer in the late 1970s, did not respond to voicemails, text messages, emails and letters left at this home and business. A lawyer who has represented him also did not respond to an email seeking comment. As of August, payroll data show the number of assistant attorneys general — the line lawyers who handle daily case and litigation work — in the criminal prosecutions division was down more than 25% from two years ago. The data, which was obtained under public records law, show the group that handles financial and white-collar cases was cut by more than half and merged with another division. “This is scary to me for the people of Texas,” said Linda Eads, who served as a deputy attorney general in the early 2000s, when she said it was rare for any division to have more than two or three vacancies. Boyd said staff turnover in Paxton’s human trafficking unit contributed to the collapse of the cases in Gatesville. In the last two years, Republican lawmakers have doubled the division’s budget to $3 million, but Boyd questioned whether it was well spent. On Sept. 13, the attorney general’s staff wrote in court papers that they were dismissing three trafficking cases because a witness had recanted and dropping the other four because they were “unable to locate victim.” “For Pete’s sake, you’re the AG’s office. You can’t find the victim?” Boyd said. “The culture is broken.” Bill Turner, who spent five years in the office under Paxton, said he quit in January after senior leaders tried to prevent him from turning over evidence to the defense in a murder prosecution. He would not discuss specifics, saying that could affect ongoing work related to the case. “We had a difference of opinion on the ethical obligations of a prosecutor and I didn’t feel like I could continue working in that environment,” said Turner, who was previously an elected Democratic district attorney in Texas. Two months later, assistant attorney general Jason Scully-Clemmons left the same division, accusing a new wave of executives in his resignation letter of “directing prosecutors to prioritize political considerations.” He also said the environment had grown hostile to LGBTQ employees around the time Paxton issued a legal opinion that set in motion Several other employees told AP that before Texas’ March primary elections, Amber Platt, a deputy over criminal justice cases, convened a meeting to ask about upcoming cases that would help Paxton’s reelection prospects. Scully-Clemmons, who declined to comment, referred to the meeting in his letter. In May, the head of Paxton’s election integrity division invited his team to a movie theater for a screening of “General Paxton will be present, among others, and I think they would love to have a good showing from our office,” assistant attorney general Jonathan White wrote in an email. As senior lawyers have been leaving the attorney general’s office, newcomers who’ve stuck by Paxton have seen their careers and compensation skyrocket. Aaron Reitz, who finished law school in 2017, was hired as an aide to Paxton’s top deputy at a salary of $135,000 in October 2020. The next month, after the deputy reported Paxton to the FBI and quit, Reitz was promoted to oversee agency legal strategy, a senior job making $205,000. In June, Reitz’s assistant sent out invitations to a “2000 Mules viewing party,” complete with barbecue. More than 90 staff and interns were later told to bring their own lunch.Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and writers Paul J. Weber in Austin and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
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