Attorney General Ken Paxton Re-Indicted in Collin County

A Collin County grand jury on Tuesday re-indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to the Collin County District Court website.

This comes two weeks after the same grand jury indicted him on two counts of securities fraud and one count of operating as an investment advisor without being licensed.

The new indictments come in two cases related to securities fraud. A third charge -- that Paxton acted as an investment advisor or representative -- remains the same.

Paxton's attorneys were critical of the re-indictment Tuesday.

"This confirms that there have been troubling issues with the grand jury process from the beginning," Paxton's attorney, Joe Kendell, said in an emailed statement. "They had months to investigate and then rushed to indict. Now, the special prosecutors are back to clean up the botched indictments."

In response, special prosecutors Brain Wice and Kent Schaffer released the following statement Tuesday evening:

"Contrary to the assertion of Mr. Paxton's criminal defense lawyer that the indictments charging his client with two counts of first-degree felony securities fraud were 'botched,' we obtained re-indictments to defuse the boilerplate arguments predictably advanced by the defense that the original indictments lacked specificity or were otherwise ambiguous. It is not unusual in any felony case, particularly fraud cases, for prosecutors to ask the grand jury to re-indict so as to provide sufficient notice to the accused as to the nature of the criminal conduct with which he is charged. At the end of the day, the 'fair-minded people' whom Mr. Paxton's criminal lawyer believes should 'question the process in this case' will recognize that the allegations against his client remain unchanged."