The attorney general of Texas, Republican Ken Patxon, fled his home and got into a van driven by his wife, Senator Angela Patxon, to avoid a summons to testify this Tuesday in an abortion access case, judicial documents indicated.
The process server identified as Ernesto Martin Herrera stated in a sworn statement that the official tried to avoid him for more than an hour from outside his house, then he ran towards the the truck of his wife, a state senator, and they left.
When asked, Patxon argued that he avoided the server due to security concerns and criticized the media for reporting on the incident.
“It is clear that the media want to generate another controversy about me I work as an attorney general, so I am attacked for having the audacity to prevent a stranger from being locked out of my home and showing concern for safety and property. tar from my family,” Paxton wrote on his Twitter account without specifying whether he would attend the hearing in a lawsuit by nonprofit groups that want to help Texans pay for out-of-state abortions.
Herrera noted in the affidavit that he arrived at Paxton’s home in Dallas on Monday morning and knocked on the front door, which had a window. She initially saw Paxton approaching the door, but then turned around.
Patxon’s wife answered the door and indicated to the server that her husband was on the phone. More than an hour later, the prosecutor left the garage, but then turned and ran inside when Herrera came up the driveway and called his name. Minutes later, Angela Paxton got out, opened the rear driver’s side door of a pickup truck, got into the seat and started the vehicle, according to a court document first reported by The Texas Tribune.
“A few minutes later I saw Mr. Paxton from the door inside the garage to the rear door behind the driver’s side,” Herreta pointed out, noting that Paxton ignored his calls that he was there to deliver legal documents to the prosecutor. general. The server said he left the summons on the ground next to the truck, but the couple left without taking it.
Paxton faced state securities fraud charges in 2015, but has not yet been tried amid delays over where the felony case must be heard and the payment of special prosecutors.
The FBI is investigating the prosecutor due to accusations of corruption made by eight of his deputies two years ago. Paxton was also sued by the Texas Bar Association for allegedly misleading the Supreme Court in his lawsuit challenging President Biden’s election victory in 2020.
With information from The Associated Press