Ken Paxton sat for hours in a federal building in Fort Worth as government lawyers grilled him under oath about his growing wealth and questionable investing history.
At the time, in December 2014, Mr. Paxton was a fast-rising Republican star. He had just been elected the next attorney general of Texas. But outside of public view, he was under scrutiny as part of a federal investigation into possible fraud.
The deposition in the case, obtained by The New York Times, was one of the earliest episodes in what would become a decade-long pattern for Mr. Paxton: accusations of corruption and other illegal conduct repeatedly emerged, only to be resolved without a conviction.
Now, as Mr. Paxton is locked in a fierce Senate race in Texas, the deposition offers a previously unseen account of his finances, his attitude toward money and how he used his connections within the State Legislature to amass his wealth.
Since his first election to public office in 2002, Mr. Paxton has grown his wealth through business investments and real estate purchases into a personal fortune with a reported value of up to $23 million. His assets now include multiple mutual funds, a cellphone tower and 15 properties across six states.
Mr. Paxton has rarely answered questions publicly about how he accumulated this wealth on a government salary. His finances have been the subject of repeated investigations by local, state and federal authorities into alleged bribery, fraud and self-dealing. The issue has been a frequent line of attack from his political opponents, including James Talarico, the Democratic state lawmaker running against him for Senate.
The 2014 deposition was part of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Servergy Inc., a technology start-up based in McKinney, Texas, which is part of the district that Mr. Paxton represented as a state lawmaker. The start-up’s founder, William Mapp III, known as Bill, was accused of making false claims to investors.
The S.E.C.’s lawyers wanted to know whether Mr. Paxton hid that he had received compensation for recruiting investors for the company.
The S.E.C. eventually brought civil fraud charges against Mr. Paxton that were dismissed. In addition to the federal inquiry, Mr. Paxton was indicted by a grand jury on state securities fraud charges in 2015. In 2024, he reached a deal to avoid trial while admitting no wrongdoing.
Under oath in 2014, Mr. Paxton told the federal lawyers that he had invested more than $400,000 in various companies. But between legislating and campaigning, he said he didn’t have time to track his investments. In fact, Mr. Paxton said, he could not locate stock certificates potentially worth $200,000.
“I’m so busy,” he said in the deposition, “I don’t always keep track of this kind of stuff.”
The deposition also shed more light on how he defended himself against the securities fraud allegations, which he spent the next decade fighting. Mr. Paxton used phrases like “I don’t remember” or “I don’t recall” more than 200 times when addressing questions. He also tried to deflect to other men he invested with and to his wife, Angela.
“I haven’t prepared a tax return in a long time because I don’t have time, so typically — actually my wife actually does them,” Mr. Paxton said, when asked about a line in his tax returns that seemed to contradict part of his testimony.
Nick Maddux, a senior adviser to Mr. Paxton, said the release of the deposition was meant to distract from the election and Mr. Paxton’s opponent.
“This is a 12-year-old deposition about a case that ended without a conviction, handed to the press by a political opponent less than a month before Election Day,” Mr. Maddux said. “Like President Trump, the attorney general has been politically persecuted for years for standing up to the establishment, and Texans have seen through it every time.”
The Times obtained the December 2014 deposition from a person who opposes Mr. Paxton’s election to the Senate. The Times independently confirmed its authenticity.
Mr. Paxton has been questioned under oath at least three times in the past decade, but none of the depositions were public.
The Talarico campaign has sought the release of two depositions that Mr. Paxton gave in a different case. A lawyer representing Mr. Paxton’s wealth manager is fighting to keep them sealed.
Mr. Paxton’s recounting of the Servergy transaction began at a Dairy Queen in McKinney. In the deposition, he said he intended to invest $100,000 in Servergy and met Mr. Mapp there to give him a check. Mr. Mapp turned down the money, Mr. Paxton said, and instead gifted him 100,000 shares of stock.
Mr. Paxton attributed Mr. Mapp’s generosity to his religious beliefs.
“I said, Well, who do I make the check out to?” Mr. Paxton told the government lawyers, according to the deposition. “He said, I can’t take your money. God doesn’t want me to take your money.”
The value of the shares eventually grew to $200,000, according to Mr. Mapp’s emails to Mr. Paxton that were described in the deposition.
The government’s lawyers asked why Mr. Mapp, who was actively seeking other investors, would give Mr. Paxton shares for free.
“It was not logical,” Mr. Paxton responded in the deposition, before adding that “Bill is a spiritual person.”
Mr. Paxton said he did not ask a lawyer whether it was “appropriate” to accept the shares.
He listed the shares as stock he held or acquired on his annual financial reports filed with state ethics regulators. Andrew Cates, an expert in Texas ethics laws, said Mr. Paxton may have violated state rules by not also disclosing that the shares were a gift.
Mr. Paxton told the government lawyers that he could not remember the location of the certificate proving he owned the stock. He said he was too busy taking his daughter to visit colleges and preparing to be attorney general.
Mr. Paxton’s testimony provided new insight into what he said was a hands-off approach to investing that helped grow his fortune as a state lawmaker.
Given his busy schedule, Mr. Paxton said he would delegate investment pitches to a member of his legislative staff.
The aide would look at the pitch and decide whether or not to consider it, Mr. Paxton said. Mr. Paxton said he would often run the idea by Byron Cook, a Republican lawmaker in the Texas House at the time who had founded a successful video game company, and other businessmen he knew who invested together.
“That’s been my strategy,” Mr. Paxton said, “rely on other people that know this stuff better than I do.”
At the time of the deposition, Mr. Paxton had investments in more than two dozen different businesses. He discussed a handful of those businesses in his testimony, saying he had invested between $50,000 and $175,000 in each. One investment saw a return of $250,000.
Mr. Paxton would eventually place many of his assets in a blind trust after questions over potential conflicts of interest were raised.
The relationship between Mr. Cook and Mr. Paxton did not last. In 2015, Mr. Cook accused Mr. Paxton of steering him and others into investing in Servergy without disclosing that he had received compensation.
The accusation was part of the criminal indictment in state court. Mr. Paxton reached a deal with prosecutors in 2024 to pay Mr. Cook and another investor about $300,000 in restitution and perform community service. Through a lawyer, Mr. Cook did not respond to requests for comment.
Servergy eventually paid a $200,000 penalty to settle separate federal civil fraud charges unrelated to Mr. Paxton. Mr. Mapp lost his job and has avoided a public profile since then. He could not be reached for comment.
Federal lawyers questioned Mr. Paxton about emails central to their fraud case in which Mr. Mapp appeared to offer him a commission for recruiting new investors. Mr. Paxton said he did not remember reading many of Mr. Mapp’s emails and insisted he did not perform services for the company.
When confronted with a copy of his own tax returns, on which the government’s lawyers said Mr. Paxton had disclosed $100,000 for “legal services” to Servergy, Mr. Paxton directed the lawyers to his wife, who he said prepared the form.
Now a state senator, Mrs. Paxton filed for divorce in 2025, accusing Mr. Paxton of adultery. She declined to comment for this article.
A federal judge dismissed the S.E.C.’s fraud case against Mr. Paxton in 2017, ruling that he was under no obligation to tell investors that he had received something of value from Mr. Mapp.
Mr. Paxton said in the deposition that he never had reason to doubt Mr. Mapp’s statements that the company would be successful.
“I tend to trust people until they prove otherwise,” Mr. Paxton said. “Once they lie, then you have got a whole different issue. That’s what’s so difficult about people not telling the truth.”
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