Ken Paxton’s Runoff Day Comes 24 Hours After His Plea Deal Let an Alleged Pedophile Walk Free
Adam Hoffman, a former attorney from Waco, was facing a first-degree felony before Paxton’s office cut a deal with his prosecutors.
Photo: Getty Images Politics Ken Paxton
Texas is headed into a heated run-off on Tuesday to choose which GOP candidate gets to face Dem. James Talarico for the Senate race in the midterms. They can choose either John Cornyn, the incumbent candidate, or Attorney General Ken Paxton—the fascist gremlin who’s used his office to eradicate civil liberties left and right, who’s sued people for doing their jobs, and… who apparently struck a sweetheart deal last month that allowed an alleged pedophile to walk free on Monday. Tough choice, guys!
Adam Hoffman, a 49-year-old former attorney from Waco, was first arrested and charged in 2022 for repeated instances of sexual abuse with a 10-year-old boy, a first-degree felony, and was facing life without parole. But after the case ended in mistrial in 2025, in which jurors were deadlocked 7-5 in favor of finding him guilty, Paxton’s office struck with Hoffman’s prosecutors a plea deal that gave him minimal jail time and no requirement to register as a sex offender. On Monday morning, Hoffman walked out of McLennan County Jail after serving just 29 days of his 60-day sentence for “good behavior.”
BREAKING: Adam Hoffman has been released from jail for “good behavior.”
Hoffman is the Waco, TX attorney who faced life without parole for repeatedly raping a young boy, until Texas AG Ken Paxton offered him 1 day in jail and no need to register as a sex offender.
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@qasimrashid.com) May 25, 2026 at 2:55 PM
Hoffman’s case received renewed criticism earlier this month, after Cornyn tweeted, “Predators who commit these crimes tend to repeat them over and over again, until stopped. Paxton could have stopped this one, but instead cut him loose to reoffend over and over again, putting more children at risk.” State Reps. Pat Curry (R-Waco) and Jeff Leach (R-Plano) also criticized Paxton’s office for the way they handled the case earlier this month, urging for new reforms.
Per a Texas Tribune report looking further into the story, the case was also complicated—as many child-abuse cases often are—and was ultimately picked apart by the jury for varying and complicating details, such as the boy’s testimony changing at points. The victim’s prosecutors also said that the child “emphasized that he preferred to move on with his life and prioritize his mental and emotional health,” which is why the case never went back to trial.
However, the chief of the Special Victims Bureau for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said that in child abuse cases, it’s not rare for victim testimonies to be the only evidence actually available—and as such, inconsistency can create reasonable doubt among jurors. While the child’s mother also originally agreed to the plea deal in court, she told the Tribune that they “were put in an impossible situation.” As she then put it: “How do you trust the prosecution to go back to a case that they want to plead out when they’re the ones that are supposed to fight for it, and they don’t want to do it?”
The case also ultimately points to a larger pattern in how Paxton’s office prosecutes cases, Judge Roy Sparkman told the outlet: “If they get a mistrial, all of a sudden it’s just a little misdemeanor with a slap on the hand.”
Somehow, none of this has stopped Paxton from receiving a Trump endorsement—something he seems to have been emboldened by, most recently having taken the president’s practice of name-calling as a viable political strategy. Speaking to a rally over the weekend in Texas about the nicknames he has for Talarico, Paxton suggested “Low-T Talarico,” “Tofu Talarico,” and “Tala-freak-o.” Wild. I can think of much worse nicknames for Paxton.
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