COLLIN COUNTY, Texas – Special prosecutors seeking to convict Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced today that Paxton will face two separate trials.
Paxton is charged with securities fraud and failing to register as a securities advisor.
The prosecutors announced during a pre-trial hearing that they’ll separate the charges for trial. That appeared to surprise Paxton’s defense attorneys.
Pressed by defense attorney Phil Hilder, special prosecutor Kent Schaffer told Judge George Gallagher, “We don’t intend to join the cases. We’re going to try the failure to register, first.”
Paxton’s lead attorney Dan Cogdell immediately replied, “That’s completely inconsistent with what Mr. Wice (co-special prosecutor) told me.”
“That’s why you should talk to me, and not Mr. Wice,” Schaffer replied.
Cogdell angrily objected, saying that the plan will double or triple the cost to taxpayers.
“Given the fee structure at play in the case, that’s absurd. We are not opposed, and indeed request, they be tried together. I'm opposed to trying them separately,” he said.
But under the law, the prosecutors have discretion to separate the cases.
Afterward, Schaffer said the decision had been made because the securities fraud case is too complicated to be tried in tandem with the other case.
"Failure to register is a straight-forward, simple case. The other about securities fraud has multiple witnesses, multiple transactions and it will be a much, much longer case,” Schaffer said.
The prosecutors are also seeking to move the trial, contending that Paxton supporters have carried on a campaign to taint the jury pool in Collin County, making it impossible to seat an unbiased jury.
The prosecutors' motion contends that Paxton supporters have filed lawsuits to malign them and stop payment of their salaries.
They also cite radio ads run in North Texas attacking the alleged victims in the securities fraud case. They say that videos and comments on social media could have an effect.
They claim that a confidential report from the Texas Rangers was leaked by a member of Paxton’s defense team, former Houston TV reporter Wayne Dolcefino, who is now a consultant.
Called to the stand on Thursday, Dolcefino admitted to giving a copy of the report to a reporter working for TexasWatchdog.org, but said he didn’t know that could be a violation of the law.
Asked by Cogdell if he thought the Ranger reports were public record, Dolcefino replied, “Absolutely.”
Asked if he would have disseminated the report if he’d known that action was illegal under the Michael Morton Act, Dolcefino said, “Absolutely not.”
At the end of the three-hour hearing, Gallagher said he would take the request for a change of venue under advisement, but told the attorneys that he wanted to “at least try to choose a jury here.”