Judge awards $6.6M to whistle­blow­ers who were fired after report­ing Texas AG Ken Pax­ton to FBI

A dis­trict court judge award­ed $6.6 mil­lion com­bined to four whistle­blow­ers who sued Texas Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton on claims he fired them in retal­i­a­tion for report­ing him to the FBI.

Blake Brick­man, David Maxwell, Mark Pen­ley and Ryan Vas­sar noti­fied Pax­ton and his office on Oct. 1, 2020, that they had report­ed him to the FBI for alleged­ly abus­ing his office. The four were all fired by mid-Novem­ber.

Travis Coun­ty Judge Cather­ine Mauzy ruled Fri­day that by a “pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence,” the whistle­blow­ers proved lia­bil­i­ty, dam­ages and attor­ney’s fees in their com­plaint against the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office.

The judg­ment says the for­mer aides made their reports to fed­er­al law enforce­ment “in good faith” and that Pax­ton’s office did not dis­pute any claims or dam­ages in the law­suit.

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“Because the Office of the Attor­ney Gen­er­al vio­lat­ed the Texas Whistle­blow­er Act by fir­ing and oth­er­wise retal­i­at­ing against the plain­tiff for in good faith report­ing vio­la­tions of law by Ken Pax­ton and OAG, the court here­by ren­ders judg­ment for plain­tiffs,” Mauzy wrote in her judg­ment.

The court found that the four for­mer aides of the attor­ney gen­er­al were fired in retal­i­a­tion for report­ing alle­ga­tions that he was using his office to accept bribes from Austin real estate devel­op­er and polit­i­cal donor Nate Paul, who employed a woman with whom Pax­ton was hav­ing an extra­mar­i­tal affair.

Pax­ton has denied alle­ga­tions that he accept­ed bribes or mis­used his office to help Paul.

“It should shock all Tex­ans that their chief law enforce­ment offi­cer, Ken Pax­ton, admit­ted to vio­lat­ing the law, but that is exact­ly what hap­pened in this case,” Tom Nes­bitt, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Brick­man, and TJ Turn­er, an attor­ney rep­re­sent­ing Maxwell, said in a joint state­ment.

Pax­ton said in a state­ment that the judge’s rul­ing is “ridicu­lous” and “not based on the facts or the law.” He said his office plans to appeal the rul­ing.

The attor­ney gen­er­al was probed by fed­er­al author­i­ties after eight employ­ees report­ed his office to the FBI in 2020 for bribery alle­ga­tions. He agreed to set­tle the law­suit for $3.3 mil­lion that would be paid by the leg­is­la­ture, but the state House reject­ed his request and con­duct­ed its own inves­ti­ga­tion.

Pax­ton was impeached in the House in 2023 before he was lat­er acquit­ted in the Sen­ate.

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In Novem­ber, the state Supreme Court over­turned a low­er-court rul­ing that would have required Pax­ton to tes­ti­fy in the law­suit.

The U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment declined to pur­sue its inves­ti­ga­tion into Pax­ton in the final weeks of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion, accord­ing to The Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

The Asso­ci­at­ed Press con­tributed to this report.