From the Texas Tribune:
In 2017, a Houston college student wrote to the family of Paul Pressler, warning them that the former Texas judge and Southern Baptist leader was a pedophile.
“There is a serious issue at hand,” he wrote in an email, adding that Pressler had recently touched him and bragged about being naked with young boys. “I do not think Paul should be around small children or have male assistance of any kind.”
Then, the young man said he was resigning as Pressler’s personal aide, and asked that Pressler’s former law partner, Jared Woodfill, stop paying him to work out of Pressler’s Houston mansion.
“My conscience dictates that I step away,” he wrote. “Please take me off the payroll. If I am to continue receiving paychecks from Woodfill in the continuing weeks, I will have them sent back.”
The email was filed late last year in Harris County district court as part of a lawsuit that accused Woodfill and others of concealing decades of alleged rape by Pressler. It sheds new light on the role that Woodfill, a prominent anti-LGBTQ+ activist who is running in the Texas House with the backing of Attorney General Ken Paxton, played in providing Pressler with access to potential victims.
In March, The Texas Tribune reported that Woodfill had recently testified under oath that he was made aware of child sexual abuse claims against Pressler in 2004, when the two of them were law partners. Despite that, Woodfill continued to lean on the political connections of Pressler — who did almost no work for their firm but was compensated via a string of young, male personal assistants who worked out of his home. Three have accused Pressler of sexual assault or misconduct.
The newly-unearthed email shows that Woodfill continued to furnish Pressler with young aides until at least 2017 — 13 years after he was first warned that Pressler was a sexual predator, and less than a year after he was made aware of new sexual misconduct allegations.
Woodfill has denied any wrongdoing, and said in a text message this week that he had not read the aide’s letter, and does not know him or another man who said in 2004 that Pressler forcibly undressed and groped him. Pressler, 93, has not been criminally charged.
Woodfill is challenging conservative Houston Rep. Lacey Hull in the Republican primary with endorsements from Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Paxton.
During Paxton’s impeachment last year, Woodfill co-led a group that raised funds for his defense and frequently defended the embattled attorney general’s Christian values. Paxton, who was acquitted by the Senate, has since returned the favor: In a December radio ad for Woodfill, Paxton attacked Hull — who was ranked as one of the state’s most conservative lawmakers last year – as a “Republican in name only” over her vote to impeach him. “True conservatives need to take control of the House,” Paxton said. “Jared Woodfill can lead the way.
Hull did not respond to a request for comment. Paxton and Miller also did not respond to questions about Woodfill’s relationship to Pressler.
Woodfill served 14 years as the chair of the Harris County GOP and, in 2015, he and Houston GOP powerbroker Steven Hotze played key roles in the defeat of an equal rights ordinance that would have made LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination illegal in Houston. During that campaign, Woodfill and Hotze compared the gay rights movement to Nazis and frequently painted members of the LGBTQ+ community as sexual predators and groomers.
If he wins his House race, Woodfill has said he will run for House Speaker against Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who Woodfill has accused of working with Democrats to suppress conservative voices and attack Paxton.
Pressler, 93, is one of the most influential evangelical figures of the last half-century for his key role in the Southern Baptist Convention’s “conservative resurgence,” during which he helped push the nation’s second-largest faith group to adopt literal interpretations of the Bible, align more closely with the Republican Party, ban women from preaching and strongly condemn homosexuality. Before that, Pressler represented Houston in the Texas House and served for 14 years as an Appeals Court judge, and his endorsement has for years been sought by evangelical political candidates, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Pressler’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Tip of the iceberg’
A copy of the aide’s email was filed in Harris County district court last year as part of a massive lawsuit in which a former member of Pressler’s church youth group, Duane Rollins, accused Pressler of decades of rape beginning when Rollins was 14. Rollins also alleged that other defendants — including Woodfill, the Southern Baptist Convention and Pressler’s longtime church, First Baptist Church of Houston — of enabling or concealing Pressler’s behavior.
