The Epstein Files have been national news for a long time now. I don’t need to repeat lots of details about the tawdry mess here. The part that matters for this discussion is the sweetheart plea deal Trump pal Jeffrey Epstein got and how the attempt to sweep the scandal bag under the rug have damaged Trump politically. It looks like Texas AG and GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton might have his own version. While outgoing Senator John Cornyn tried to make ‘The Hoffman Files’ an issue in the primary but it didn’t get traction. Now, Democratic candidate James Talarico has taken up the matter and might damage Paxton when Cornyn couldn’t.
Let me be clear. While this is nowhere near the size of the Epstein Files scandal the case of Paxton engineering a sweetheart deal for Waco’s (now living in Kansas) attorney Adam Hoffman for sexual abuse of a boy that started when the child was seven years old. Frankly I didn’t know Cornyn had raised this during his bitter (and losing) primary fight with Paxton. I’m guessing that like me most readers were reading/hearing about upstart James Talarico and how he was polling against both his potential opponents. Reporting from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram provides a primer of sorts to familiarize you with the case. Here are the basics it lays out:
- Former Waco attorney Adam Hoffman, 49, was arrested in June 2022 and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child after a friend of his son’s told authorities that he had been abused since he was about 7 years old. Hoffman initially faced between 25 years to life in prison on the first-degree felony charge.
- The McLennan district attorney recused himself in the case, which is why the Attorney General’s Office took over.
- The victim testified when the case went to trial, but it ended with a hung jury. The victim, now 14, didn’t want to testify again in an effort not to be re-traumatized (emphasis added) according to Paxton’s office.
- In March, Paxton’s office offered Hoffman a plea deal that included reduced charges and 30 days in jail if he pleaded guilty. Before the bargain, Hoffman was facing a life sentence without parole. Talarico called it an “Epstein-style sweetheart deal.”
- Hoffman pleaded guilty on April 16 to reduced charges of indecent assault and displaying harmful materials to a minor, Class A misdemeanors that could lead to up to a year in jail. The judge in the case extended the jail time to 60 days.
- On day 29 in the McLennan County Jail, Hoffman was released for good behavior. The jail often grants similar “two-for-one” deals when inmates exhibit good behavior, according to KWTX-TV in Waco.
Having lost his law license, Hoffman (and his wife) would move to Omaha. He was required to registers as a sex offender in his home county of Sarpy. However, due to his plea deal he was NOT required to register as a sex offender in Texas. There’s been mention elsewhere this might not be the only sweetheart plea for sexual abuse deal Paxton’s office has presided over. In other words this could turn out to be at a minimum a small pattern. Yes, I’m wondering if as happened with Epstein once the first thread got pulled something much larger unraveled.
Anyway, those are the basics. I developed (admittedly with some justification) a reputation years ago for being long winded and digging into details to the point of boring people. Fair enough. That’s why I tried above to give everyone the proverbial “short version.” However the Texas Senate Race is going to be crucial to Democrats’ ability to regain control of the Senate and since it seems clear Talarico is likely to make this a key issue in the months ahead I’ll provide a link to a more detailed article from KRGV.com (Rio Grande Valley, Texas) that provides a lot more detail and context. I urge you to read it, and what follows but if you are someone who’s followed my writing since back to DK days at least skip down to the bottom and watch the video.
Yes, the linked article contains a lot more information so it will take a while to read. However I have a strong feeling The Hoffman Files will join The Epstein Files in the national discussion between now and November. I feel compelled to present some of it here but promise to try and limit how much I cite from it. Although published during the runoff campaign between Cornyn and Paxton everything in the article is as relevant now as it was then. Only now it’s more likely to be paid attention to.
I’ll start by trying to summarize the context. Paxton’s office took over the Hoffman case three years ago after the locally elected district attorney recused himself. The child had to testify at the original trial which ended with a hung jury. By the time Paxton’s office took over he’d become a teen and assuming he’d be forced by the defense to again take the stand understandably said no. Fearing a loss at trial without the victim’s testimony (where Hoffman’s lawyer would have traumatized him) the decision was made to generate a plea deal. It’s more common than one might think in such cases. Here’s the kicker though. If you thought Epstein got a sweetheart deal the original proffer to Hoffman would have let him plead guilty to two misdemeanors and serve a total of just one day in jail.
In the end thirty days was agreed to. Hoffman could have been sentenced to up to a year in prison for the misdemeanors he pled to, and the judge did extend his sentence but to only sixty days. Hoffman was released after serving half that for ‘good behavior’ and the victim’s mother has expressed outrage. She feels like her son and the family got pressured to go along and now regrets doing so. As for the judge who accepted the deal he was incredulous:
“One day. Seriously? Somebody has to sell me on the wisdom of it,” said Judge Roy Sparkman, according to a transcript of an April 16 hearing. Sparkman, a visiting judge who previously served on the bench as a Republican, later insisted on a 60-day jail sentence.
Alas he was more talk than action. The victim’s mother felt blindsided because while she’d agreed to an early version of the plea deal what wound up being presented seems to have not been what she’d expected. As for the victim I for one can understand him wanting to move on. In fact in what little comment we are getting from Paxton’s office is to attack (at first) Cornyn and now Talarico for ‘re-traumatizing’ the victim. Really? What about Hoffman’s lawyer and the SH!TTY, appalling ‘blame the victim’ questions HE would have asked at trial? We don’t (it was a child sex abuse case) have a transcript of the original trial but one can be sure the victim got put through the wringer defense lawyers became infamous for putting victims of sexual abuse through. And this was a boy who’d first been abused at age seven and wasn’t yet a teenager by the time of trial!
So no – Paxton should have limited his response to ‘These are always difficult, gut wrenching cases and without the victim’s cooperation difficult to win.’ Not a great response but better than what happened which is Paxton victim blaming for the abuse via (Cornyn/Talarico) proxy! And Cornyn made an important point cited in the May 19 article:
“Predators who commit these crimes tend to repeat them over and over again, until stopped,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who Paxton is seeking to oust in the primary, recently posted on X. “Paxton could have stopped this one, but instead cut him loose to reoffend over and over again, putting more children at risk.”
State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who has endorsed Cornyn’s reelection, sent a letter to Paxton’s office earlier this month calling the deal “incomprehensible” and demanding answers.
I know folks. This is already long but if you’ve come this far please indulge me a bit more. I’d like to point out again that this isn’t the only case that’s come to light that we’re likely to hear more about:
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.
If you’ve extended me the courtesy of your time you can I think see why I think it’s been worth your time. We won’t be able to flip the Senate without Cornyn’s seat being part of the equation. Right now Paxton is already behind and needs every MAGA vote he can get. IF Iran settles down some and more attention returns to the Epstein files Paxton’s “Hoffman Files” might get linked with MAGAs already unhappy with Trump and if so Paxton will be in deep doo-doo. With the Iran war dominating news Cornyn couldn’t get traction against Paxton on this but Talarico just might. In closing, watch Talarico (a teacher, not a lawyer) brilliantly make the case:
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
