144

Ken Paxton agrees to community service, paying restitution to avoid trial in securities fraud case (www.texastribune.org)

submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

Prosecutors on Tuesday agreed to drop the securities fraud charges facing Attorney General Ken Paxton if 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.

The deal, which landed three weeks before Paxton is set to face trial, also requires him to take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay restitution to those he is accused of defrauding more than a decade ago when he allegedly solicited investors in a McKinney technology company without disclosing that the firm was paying him to promote its stock. The amount of restitution totals about $271,000, prosecutor Brian Wice said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Seriously why do we still follow laws? I say break every one you can get away with at this point.

That's part of the problem, though: regular people don't get away with shit, even when they're not guilty.

Federal prosecutors have an average conviction rate of over 90% even with the rich and powerful getting away with everything. There's no way that over 90% of everyone federally prosecuted are guilty.

The poor, which are the vast majority of defendants, can't afford an attorney and public defenders offices are ridiculously understaffed and underfunded to the point that they sometimes have only a few minutes TOTAL to get in, tell someone innocent to take a deal that will ruin their life and go on to the next victim of what is grotesquely referred to as the "justice" system by some.

this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024

144 points (98.0% liked)

politics

19136 readers

3852 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News