AUSTIN (KXAN) -- A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses several top leaders at Texas' Office of the Attorney General, or OAG, of a conspiracy to create official documents in order to defame two former OAG employees.
Austin attorneys Judd Stone and Chris Hilton, and their firm Stone Hilton PLLC, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court.
The defendants in the case are Texas' First Assistant Attorney General of Brent Webster, Deputy First Assistant Attorney General Ralph Molina, and Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice Josh Reno. Webster's role is second in command to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Molina and Reno both report up to Webster, according to the OAG's structure.
While all three work for the OAG, the lawsuit does not name them in their official capacity.
KXAN emailed to the OAG to ask if the defendants wanted to comment on the lawsuit. None responded at the time of publication, but we'll update this story if we receive a reply.
In May, Stone and Hilton were sued by a former assistant who alleged claims of sexual harassment and wage theft. That case is still open, but their response to KXAN called it "a complete fabrication" by Webster.
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Stone and Hilton both previously worked for the OAG, but left in 2023 prior to Paxton's impeachment trial to help defend their former boss, the lawsuit states.
2023 | Ken Paxton acquitted on all impeachment chargesStone Hilton's lawsuit claims that the two "observed and otherwise learned that Webster committed state and federal crimes before and throughout the impeachment process."
They did not provide additional details about the alleged crimes and called them "broadly outside the scope of" their civil lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that they reported the alleged misconduct to the State Bar.
"Stone and Hilton continue to enjoy a good relationship with Attorney General Paxton, despite Webster’s best efforts, and they assumed that with the pressure of impeachment behind them, eventually tensions would subside," the lawsuit states.
Those "best efforts" allegedly included attempts "to negatively impact the firm’s business" by telling prospective clients of Stone Hilton to not hire the firm.
December 2024 email: Real concerns, or contrived?
In November 2024, after more than a year of what Stone and Hilton call "spiteful meddling," the two filed a public information request with the OAG. That request was included with the lawsuit. It asked for copies of all communications by Webster and other officials that mentioned Stone Hilton, Trump, election, pardon, Mar-a-Lago, and several other conservative individuals and groups.
The lawsuit claims that the request led to the "creation" of a December 2024 email from Webster. The email claims that Stone and Hilton admitted to sexual harassment against female subordinates.
"Despite the fact that they had departed OAG fifteen months earlier, he wrote this email to retroactively change the reason for their separation from OAG to termination because of allegations of sexual harassment," they wrote. "Webster decided to lie and claim that Stone and Hilton had admitted these allegations. Webster thought nothing of fabricating official documents if it meant advancing his grudge against Plaintiffs."
This email was included in the lawsuit against Stone and Hilton and in their lawsuit against Webster. It can be read below:
1-2_1750889018DownloadTo note, the emails submitted by both lawsuits is the same email.
Stone and Hilton's lawsuit claims Webster, Reno and Molina created the "false and defamatory" email with "a number of other false allegations that would normally be too ridiculous to warrant a response."
"Put bluntly, Webster’s safety concerns were and are a lie—and a lie that is costing the Texas taxpayers money as we speak. Upon information and belief, Webster enjoys a security detail at his home based on these consciously false pretenses to this day," the lawsuit states.
A part of the email included lurid accusations of fantasies allegedly held by Stone. These quickly went viral online after the lawsuit against Stone and Hilton went public. Stone wrote in his Wednesday filing that the email contained "as many salacious accusations as possible in order to ensure maximum media coverage and therefore maximum embarrassment."
"The contents of Webster’s email ranged from the disgusting to the absurd," Stone Hilton wrote. "On the disgusting side, Webster accused Stone of wanting to see him sexually assaulted in front of his children—a loathsome lie with no basis in fact, concocted wholly with the intention of slandering Stone. On the absurd side, Webster professed terror in response to allegations that Stone had said that he wanted Webster to fall victim to an asteroid strike."
Was the email illegally released?
The final major claim by Stone and Hilton is that Webster directed their former assistant to request the December 2024 email "despite knowing that there were numerous reasons that releasing such an email would violate the Public Information Act."
Texas statutes restrict some information from release under the Public Information Act. According to the OAG's website, state agencies are required to withhold driver's license numbers, for example. However, agencies can ask the OAG to rule on whether some non-confidential information should be withheld.
Stone and Hilton argue that the OAG would have had a compelling interest "as an employer in keeping personnel notes confidential."
"Upon discovering the email, Stone and Hilton informed [Paxton] of the letter and its falsity and objected to its release under the Public Information Act in the first place," the lawsuit states. "Consistent with his obligation to make public-information rulings in the face of such objections, and after consulting with numerous members of his senior staff, [Paxton] determined that it should never have been released by OAG in the first place."
The lawsuit then claims that this rescinded decision caused Webster to prompt the former assistant to file her lawsuit against Stone and Hilton. This would lead to the email reaching the media, their lawsuit claims.
"His hyperbolic claims regarding Stone and Hilton received substantial media attention, much of it incorrectly taking Webster’s email as the product of an investigation. The email was not the product of an investigation," the lawsuit states. "Webster undermined his boss’s authority by ensuring that the email was made public. Aided and abetted by Reno and Molina, Webster then did whatever he could to embarrass Stone and Hilton and tarnish their reputations as he desperately clings to power."
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