WASHINGTON \u2014 Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is borrowing a page from Republican Sen. John Cornyn\u2019s playbook by condemning how the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s Office handled a Waco child sex abuse case. Talarico is demanding that Paxton provide answers on why the case resulted in only a brief prison sentence for the defendant.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Like Republicans during the Senate primary, Democratic candidate James Talarico\u2019s campaign is criticizing his opponent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over his office\u2019s handling of a Waco child sex abuse case that resulted in reduced charges and a short prison sentence after a mistrial\u00a0
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Talarico is demanding that Paxton release files pertaining to Adam Hoffman, who was accused of sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy for years\u00a0
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The assistant attorneys general said the deal was a \u201cdifficult decision\u201d and \u201cwas made entirely in the best interest of the child involved,\u201d and that the child \u201cpreferred to move on with his life\u201d rather than testifying again in a second trial\u00a0<\/p>\n
The push to make the Justice Department\u2019s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein public united lawmakers across party lines in Congress. Now, Talarico, a Texas state representative from Round Rock, wants the same transparency from his opponent in the handling of a controversial plea deal with a Waco attorney accused of child sexual abuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose documents need to be made public immediately so Texans can get answers about this corrupt deal,\u201d Talarico said last month, standing outside a courthouse in Waco. \u201cIf there\u2019s anything that all Texans can agree on, Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives. It\u2019s that no one, not even the attorney general of Texas, should be able to cover up crimes against children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former attorney Adam Hoffman was accused of sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy for years. In a deal with Paxton\u2019s office, Hoffman pleaded guilty to reduced charges after a mistrial last year. Hoffman ultimately served 30 days behind bars.<\/p>\n
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said the Talarico campaign is trying to strike at what is normally a strength for Republicans, which is being tough on crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that there are significant elements of the electorate that have preexisting concerns about Paxton\u2019s ethics and potential corruption, and so the Talarico campaign would like to tie this incident into that narrative,\u201d said.<\/p>\n
During the primary, even some fellow Republicans like state Reps. Jeff Leach and Pat Curry criticized Paxton for the deal. They held a press conference in May outside the Waco courthouse, calling for sweeping legal reforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is without question the most negligently, recklessly handled case that I\u2019ve ever seen come out of the Attorney General\u2019s Office,\u201d Leach said.<\/p>\n
Cornyn had a campaign ad attacking Paxton over it as they battled in the Republican primary earlier this year. The ad started off saying, \u201cWhy does Ken Paxton go easy on child predators?\u201d<\/p>\n
After losing the primary to Paxton, Cornyn said that while he stands by everything he said on the campaign trail, he supports the Republican ticket. Leach and Curry\u2019s respective offices did not respond to requests for further comment, but Leach has since fully endorsed Paxton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why the really bruising Republican primary between Cornyn and Paxton was so helpful to the Democrats, because now Talarico can say, \u2018Look, it\u2019s not just me saying this, Republican Sen. John Cornyn had concerns about this,\u2019 and that adds credibility,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a video that went viral on social media, Paxton did not answer repeated questions about Hoffman. Because Hoffman did not plead guilty to the original felony charge, he did not have to register as a sex offender in Texas.<\/p>\n
In a letter, the assistant attorneys general said the deal was a \u201cdifficult decision\u201d and \u201cwas made entirely in the best interest of the child involved\u201d and that the child \u201cpreferred to move on with his life\u201d rather than testifying again in a second trial.<\/p>\n
In a statement to Spectrum News, Paxton\u2019s campaign spokesperson said, \u201cEvery time James Talarico chooses to bring this case up he is intentionally re-traumatizing the child victim for personal gain. OAG prosecutors have already released information on this, but Talarico cares more about turning a child victim into a political pawn than the truth. 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.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
By calling to release the Hoffman files, Talarico\u2019s campaign is trying to turn a controversial criminal case into a broader argument about transparency and accountability as the Senate race heats up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be a nasty and bitter campaign, and that a lot of what we\u2019re going to be talking about down the stretch is not issues and public policy, it\u2019s going to be personal attacks from the candidates against each other\u2019s character, ethics, personality, etc, and I think this is just one salvo in that kind of fight,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is borrowing a page from Republican Sen. John Cornyn\u2019s playbook by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6329,1657,1658,3645,2160,132,6328,102,223,287,91318,82,27,29,28,2053,835],"class_list":["post-362131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-app-capital-tonight","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-national-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-capital-tonight","tag-dallas","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-reena-diamante","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362131","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=362131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}