Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled from his home on Monday with his wife to avoid being served a subpoena in a legal battle over funding for abortions, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.
The incident is related to several abortion rights organizations that are seeking a court order barring state officials from pursuing criminal charges against their employees if they resume funding abortions in other states for Texas residents. A process server was outside the home of Paxton to serve a subpoena for a hearing scheduled Tuesday in Austin, Texas, before the attorney general fled the scene.
The process server was Ernesto Herrera, who said in the affidavit that he arrived at Paxton’s residence just before 8:30 a.m., and a woman who identified herself as Angela answered the door and told him her husband was inside on the phone and in a “hurry to leave.”
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Herrera went back to his car outside Paxton’s home, and just after 9 a.m., he saw the garage door open with Paxton exiting his home. Walking into the driveway, Herrera approached Paxton and called out his name.
“As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” he said in the affidavit.
Minutes after he went back inside, Angela Paxton came outside the house and entered a black Chevrolet truck in the driveway. She opened the back passenger door before starting the truck, and shortly after, Paxton came outside the home and headed for the truck while ignoring the process server.
Paxton posted a tweet, accusing the media of wanting to “drum up another controversy” and expressing concerns about the “safety” of his family.
It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family.
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) September 27, 2022
The affidavit further states that the process server loudly said he was serving Paxton legal documents and placed them in a visible location on the ground, though both Angela and Ken Paxton remained inside the truck and drove away, leaving the documents behind.
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On Tuesday, Paxton filed a motion accusing the plaintiffs in the case of causing a “serious security risk for the Attorney General,” adding that “Plaintiffs did not provide undersigned counsel with any of the details of this purported service until they publicly filed the Attorney General’s home address on the even of the preliminary injunction hearing in this matter.”
Paxton has worked as the state attorney general for seven years, and Angela Paxton has been a Texas state senator since 2019.
