Video shows Ken Paxton silent on Waco child sex abuse plea deal | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

Texas Democrats are urging Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to answer questions surrounding a plea deal that his prosecutors offered to a Waco man charged with repeatedly sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy. 

In a video that circulated online Wednesday, Paxton is seen walking into what appears to be a Washington, D.C.-based hotel when he is approached by a man who begins asking the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate about the case. 

“What do you think about Adam Hoffman? Why did you get a plea deal for a child sex predator? Do you have anything to say about that?” The man continues his line of questioning. “Should he be registered as a pedophile in the state of Texas, a sex offender? What do you have to say to the victim of Adam Hoffman?”

Paxton remained silent throughout the exchange, his hands in his pockets, as what seemed to be a member of his security detail asked the man addressing him to step back. 

Hoffman, a former Waco-based attorney, was accused of sexually abusing the boy repeatedly for years. The boy told an investigator that Hoffman raped him and showed him pornography, according to court records. The case went to trial but was resolved through a plea deal, which dropped the felony charge of “continuous sexual abuse of a young child” and allowed Hoffman to plead guilty to two misdemeanors and initially only called for him to serve one day in jail.

The judge in the case increased the sentence from 30 days to 60 days in jail after the mother of the boy said the first sentence was “not enough” time. Hoffman’s legal team accepted the terms of the deal, which also included surrendering his Texas law license and a “lifetime protective order” barring him from contact with the victim. However, it did not require him to register as a sex offender in the state. Hoffman ended up spending 30 days in jail and was released early under the county’s good behavior policy.

Paxton’s office took over the case roughly three years ago after the McLennan County district attorney recused himself because Hoffman had previously sought the district attorney’s counsel when he was a defense attorney. 

Paxton’s office has defended the plea deal by referring to a letter prosecutors wrote to Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, after Leach called the deal “incomprehensible.” Paxton’s team said the child “made clear that he would not voluntarily testify at a second trial” as an explanation for the plea deal.

The victim’s mother said in a statement released the same day that Paxton’s team letter was dated, that prosecutors “made sure my son was in the room when they raised the plea deal — knowing he didn’t want to testify again — and they used that against him.” 

Now that Paxton is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have spoken out against it, with Democrats likening it to an “Epstein-style” deal, drawing comparisons to the case involving disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Last week, Paxton’s U.S. Senate opponent James Talarico held a press conference, demanding the immediate release of all communications from Paxton’s office, including text messages, emails, documents and internal memos related to Hoffman’s case. 

“Adam Hoffman should’ve served 35 years to life for sexually assaulting a young boy. Instead, the well-connected Waco lawyer served less than a month in jail,” Talarico told the Statesman. “Texans deserve answers about this Epstein-style sweetheart deal. The Epstein class has no place in Texas.”

After the most recent video, the Texas Democratic Party wrote online that the people of Texas “deserve to know the truth” and called back to a plea from Talarico to “release the Hoffman files.” 

“Texans deserve to know why Ken Paxton let an admitted child molester back on their streets in days without registering as a sex offender, but he refuses to answer their questions,” Ryan Martin, a spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party, told the American-Statesman. “Texans are fed up with corrupt politicians like Ken Paxton protecting pedophiles with Epstein-style sweetheart deals. Texans need answers now.”

Paxton’s campaign representatives accused Talarico of “intentionally re-traumatizing the child victim for personal gain” by resurfacing the case.

“The bottom line is that we stand with the child victim, who in this case did not wish to testify again and be forced into the same room as his abuser,” Madison Cercy, a spokeswoman for Paxton’s campaign, told the Statesman.