Inside the child sex abuse case that resulted in Ken Paxton's office offering a plea deal of just one day in jail

The controversy over the case has raised fresh questions about whether Texas’ top lawyer is living up to his own hardline stance on criminal prosecutions. Critics are pointing to two other serious felony cases that the attorney general’s prosecutors took to trial that ended in mistrials and, eventually, plea deals.

For instance, attack ads from Cornyn’s allies highlight the case of a man originally charged with child sex trafficking who received a deal for a probation sentence. And Sparkman brought up another case in open court last month, noting that Paxton had also taken over a murder-for-hire case that he oversaw, which resulted in a misdemeanor plea and a four-day jail sentence.

“I’m seeing a pattern here that is concerning me,” Sparkman said, referring to the way Paxton’s office prosecutes cases. “If they get a mistrial, all of a sudden it’s just a little misdemeanor with a slap on the hand.”

Court records show that all three cases drawing scrutiny began as high-level felony charges and ended in mistrials. All were eventually resolved with plea deals resulting in little to no jail time. And in each case, the judge presiding over the deal insisted on a harsher punishment than what Paxton’s office originally proposed.



https://www.texastribune.org/2026/05/19/ken-paxton-waco-plea-deal-child-sex-abuse-texas-attorney-general/