WALLER, Texas \u2013 The Houston area midwife at the center of a historic Texas abortion case is now facing a new set of charges.<\/p>\n
A Waller County grand jury handed down a 22 count reindictment for Maria Rojas, 50, last week. <\/p>\n
Rojas was previously indicted on 15 counts, including performing an illegal abortion and practicing medicine without a license. The reindictment drops the practicing medicine without a license charges and instead alleges 19 counts of violating the Medical Practice Act resulting in financial harm, in addition to three abortion-related charges.<\/p>\n
The new indictment alleges Rojas knowingly offered medical treatment to patients without a license, resulting in financial harm. The document also now names several of the patients who were reportedly in Rojas\u2019 care.<\/p>\n
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton first announced Rojas\u2019 arrest in March 2025.<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s office accused Rojas of operating a network of illegal clinics and performing illegal abortions in the Houston area.<\/p>\n
Last October, the AG\u2019s office also announced the arrest of eight employees tied to Rojas\u2019 clinics.<\/p>\n
Rojas\u2019 case drew national attention because she is the first person to be charged since the reversal of Roe V. Wade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing new on our end,\u201d Rojas\u2019 attorney Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube told KPRC 2 on the phone Monday, when asked about the reindictment.<\/p>\n
It is unclear why prosecutors sought to reindict Rojas on new charges. But her defense has maintained her innocence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that she did not commit a crime and we look forward to doing everything we can to get to the truth in this matter,\u201d Hochglaube told KPRC 2 after a court hearing last September.<\/p>\n
In addition to the criminal charges, Rojas is also facing a separate civil lawsuit filed by the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office in connection to her clinics.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages as well as keeping Rojas\u2019 clinics closed. <\/p>\n
In March 2025, a Waller County judge issued a temporary injunction to keep the clinics closed.<\/p>\n
But Rojas\u2019 civil attorneys, including from the Center for Reproductive Rights, are fighting to appeal the decision. It is currently pending with the Texas Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 has reached out to the AG\u2019s office for comment, but has not heard back yet.<\/p>\n
Rojas\u2019 next court date in the criminal case is in August.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WALLER, Texas \u2013 The Houston area midwife at the center of a historic Texas abortion case is now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,117262,1967,117260,117263,117261],"class_list":["post-328176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-illegal-abortion-charges","tag-ken-paxton","tag-reproductive-rights-lawsuit","tag-texas-abortion-case","tag-waller-county-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}