Paxton, who will not have to enter a plea under the terms of the agreement, faced the prospect of decades in prison if he had been convicted of fraud.
Sign up for The Briefif he performs 100 hours of community service and fulfills other conditions of a pretrial agreement, bringing an abrupt end to the nearly nine-year-old felony case that has loomed over the embattled Republican since his early days in office.
“But let me be clear, at no time was he going to enter any plea bargain agreement or admit to conduct that simply did not occur,” Cogdell said in a statement. “There is no admission of any wrongdoing on Ken’s part in the agreement because there was no wrongdoing on his part.” The securities fraud case, meanwhile, has been repeatedly delayed by disputes over where the trial should take place and how much the special prosecutors handling the case should be paid. The legal saga dates back to July 2015, when Paxton was indicted on three felony securities fraud charges just months into his first term as the state’s top lawyer.
Wice said he had been “besieged by a torrent of phone calls” from people who have “expressed their monumental displeasure with the fact that these cases are being resolved with a pretrial intervention.” Touting the restitution Paxton now owes to his alleged victims, Wice said it was more important to secure justice for them than to pursue prison time for Paxton, which he said should only be a priority if the defendant presents a threat to public safety.
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