\u200bPaxton is accusing EPIC and CCP of violating securities laws, such as “engaging in fraudulent practices while soliciting funds.”<\/p>\n
PLANO, Texas \u2014 After accusing its developers of violating securities laws and regulations in October<\/a>, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the East Plano Islamic Center.<\/p>\n The suit also includes Community Capital Partners and many of their leaders. EPIC is a proposed Muslim-centric development in Collin County.<\/p>\n \u201cThe leaders behind EPIC City have engaged in a radical plot to destroy hundreds of acres of beautiful Texas land and line their own pockets,\u201d Paxton said in a statement. \u201cI will relentlessly bring the full force of the law against anyone who thinks they can ignore the rules and hurt Texans. The unlawful land project known as EPIC City will be stopped, and those responsible will be barred from ever creating another fraudulent operation like this again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Paxton is accusing EPIC and CCP of violating securities laws, such as “engaging in fraudulent practices while soliciting funds.” The suit accuses the entities of releasing promotional materials implying EPIC would be illegally reserved specifically for Muslims and calling it the “epicenter of Islam in North America.”<\/p>\n The lawsuit also accuses the developers of the project of funneling much of the funds into their own pockets.<\/p>\n EPIC recently bought just over 400 acres of property north of Josephine near the intersections of County Roads 850 and 695 for the proposed development that includes more than 1,000 homes, a school, retail areas, parks and more centered around a mosque.<\/p>\n The proposed development quickly drew the ire of state officials, with Gov. Greg Abbott announcing earlier this year that a dozen state agencies were investigating<\/a> \u201cpotential illegal activities conducted by EPIC and its affiliated entities.”<\/p>\n KERA reports<\/a> the Texas Workforce Commission agreed in September to resolve fair housing allegations against the proposed development. The Department of Justice also ended its\u00a0investigation into EPIC City<\/a> in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n Attorney Dan Cogdell, who is representing EPIC, has declined to comment on the lawsuit as of Friday evening, and said he wanted to look over the complete document filed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bPaxton is accusing EPIC and CCP of violating securities laws, such as “engaging in fraudulent practices while soliciting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-78089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78089","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=78089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}