Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico traveled to the steps of the McLennan County Courthouse in Waco on Thursday to publicly flay Attorney General Ken Paxton over a plea deal his office cut for a man convicted of repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy — a deal that let the guy walk away without ever registering as a sex offender, The Texas Tribune reports.
Talarico demanded Paxton hand over internal communications showing how the deal got cooked up, depicting it as a matter of basic bipartisan decency: "No one, not even the attorney general of Texas, should be able to cover up crimes against children."
The deal itself — 30 days in jail, an admission of guilt, and surrendering his law license for 49-year-old Adam Dean Hoffman — had already elicited widespread outrage after reporting last month by The Texas Tribune, the Texas Newsroom, and KWBU shed light on how the case unraveled. The trial ended in a mistrial after the victim refused to testify a second time.
That didn't stop the backlash. The victim's mother, the presiding judge, and Republican lawmakers all cried foul over the leniency. The judge — himself a former Republican — had previously rejected an even sweeter deal that would have given Hoffman a single day in jail. He also identified a second AG-handled case where he thought the office had again been suspiciously generous, raising uncomfortable questions about whether Paxton's shop has a pattern of going soft on child sex abusers.
Paxton's office insists the deal was made entirely in the child's best interest — the boy told prosecutors he wanted to move on and avoid the trauma of facing his abuser in court again. One of the prosecutors involved denied any connection to the other questionable case.
Paxton's campaign spokesperson, Madison Cercy, hit back, calling Talarico's demands "disgusting" and accusing him of deliberately re-traumatizing the child victim for political gain. The office has already been transparent about the case, Cercy insisted — it's Talarico who's turning a suffering child into a campaign prop. "The bottom line is that we stand with the child victim," she said, which is a pretty bold fucking thing to say when your boss's office handed his abuser 30 days and a handshake.
Worth noting: this isn't the first time the plea deal has been used as political ammunition. John Cornyn hammered Paxton relentlessly on child protection issues during the Republican primary runoff, running ads warning that Paxton "failed to protect" trafficking victims and would "fail us" again. It didn't work. Paxton somehow (It's Texas. y'know?) beat him by nearly 28 points — suggesting that either Republican primary voters weren't buying it, weren't paying attention, or didn't care enough to change their vote.
On Thursday, Talarico compared it to an "Epstein-style sweetheart deal," referring to the contentious 2008 nonprosecution agreement that federal prosecutors reached with notorious convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It's so bad for Paxton that even a Texas lawyer who helped lead his defense during his 2023 impeachment trial endorsed Talarico in the state's critical Senate race this November. The problem Talarico is facing is that it's Texas. And it's a Republican stronghold. Does he have a chance of defeating Paxton, a notably corrupt Republican? According to polls, he does, but it's close.
