Texas Supreme Court pauses lawsuit against Steven Hotze over 2020 election conspiracy assault

The Texas Supreme Court stayed proceedings in a civil lawsuit filed against Republican activist Steven Hotze, amid his attempt to block claims over the alleged attack of a man targeted in a voter fraud conspiracy theory, until a criminal case against him can be resolved.

The Supreme Court granted an emergency motion Jan. 17 asked for by Hotze, and directed parties in the lawsuit to file responses in the court by Feb. 18. The Supreme Court order effectively blocked the start of a Harris County civil trial, which had been scheduled for Feb. 17, according to court records.

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The lawsuit was filed against Hotze in 2021 by David Lopez, a Houston man who in October 2020 was allegedly assaulted by a private eye hired by Hotze to investigate a ballot harvesting conspiracy theory related to that year’s election. The investigator, Mark Aguirre, crashed his SUV into a work van being driven by Lopez and then held the man at gun point.

Aguirre, a former Houston Police Department captain, later told police that he believed that Lopez had ballots in the back of the van. The van only had air conditioning parts and tools, police said. Aguirre was arrested and charged with with four felonies, including aggravated assault and unlawful restraint. Hotze, who prosecutors allege organized the assault on Lopez, has also been charged with the same four crimes.

Lopez’s lawsuit accuses Hotze and Aguirre of assault and kidnapping, and seeks more than $1 million in damages. The lawsuit also names Hotze’s Liberty Center for God and Country as a defendant. 

In the leadup to the 2020 general election, Hotze and his organization sought to prohibit voters from dropping off mail ballots in person before Election Day and publicly alleged Harris County Democrats had devised a scheme to submit as many as 700,000 fraudulent mail ballots. The claim was false.

Last month, Hotze’s attorney, Jared Woodfill, asked both the Supreme Court and a federal judge to temporarily block the lawsuit from going forward. In motions to both courts, Woodfill claimed that Lopez’s attorneys were working in concert with Harris County prosecutors to go after Hotze. He questioned whether Hotze’s rights against self-incrimination were violated by the civil lawyers sharing depositions with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

Woodfill argued that any civil actions against Hotze should be stayed until the criminal case against him is resolved.

The Supreme Court’s court stay order didn’t address any of Woodfill’s claims, and instead directed Lopez’s attorneys to file a response to Woodfill. No rulings have been made in the appeal Hotze made to the federal court.

A motion hearing scheduled for Tuesday morning in Harris County’s civil district court was canceled. Hotze is scheduled to appear in criminal court on Feb. 14 for a status conference. No trial date has been set