Long before Ken Paxton, Texas had a mixed history of attorneys general facing indictment

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has spent nearly all his nine years as the state's top lawyer under indictment on securities fraud charges filed in 2015. He was accused of defrauding investors and soliciting clients for an investment firm without having a license to do so.

On Tuesday, he accepted a deferred prosecution agreement in which prosecutors will drop the three felony charges if Paxton successfully completes the terms of the deal, which include paying $271,000 in restitution, performing community service and taking ethics training.

But Tuesday's action did not put the final exclamation point on Paxton's legal challenges. There still remains the ongoing federal investigation stemming from allegations made by some of his top former aides. They accused Paxton of abusing his position to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, who was the target of an FBI probe at the time.

Those are the same allegations that triggered the Texas House's own investigation into the whistleblowers' complaints. And that, as we remember, resulted in the overwhelming bipartisan vote to impeach Paxton on 20 charges, including bribery and abuse of office. In the Texas Senate, however, Paxton was acquitted largely along party lines.

Paxton, who has steadfastly insisted that all of his legal difficulties in office are unfounded, is not the only holder of that office to have faced criminal charges, and one of them went on to serve time in a federal prison for actions taken under the guise of his official duty.

Dan Morales' rapid rise and steep fall

Dan Morales, a Democrat who in 1990 was a largely undistinguished member of the Texas Legislature, was elected attorney general at age 34. Because of his young age and being a member the state's dominant party at the time, Morales had all the makings of a rising political star who could occupy a place on center stage for decades.

Four years later, even as Republicans were making deep inroads in Texas, Morales was elected by a double-digit margin. Soon afterward, he made national headlines when he spearheaded a civil lawsuit against the nation's largest tobacco companies, arguing that they should repay state taxpayers for the cost of caring for Texans made sick by smoking.

More: Whistleblowers, fraud and Nate Paul: A timeline of Texas AG Ken Paxton's impeachment trial

At first blush, the lawsuit looked like a fool's errand. Big Tobacco had been sued before and almost always won. But Morales put together a team of some of Texas' most effective, and feared, trial lawyers to manage the case.

That move would prove to be Morales' greatest triumph, and the harbinger of his undoing. The legal team managed to box in Big Tobacco, forcing an eye-popping $17.3 billion settlement with Texas.

Political watchers were stunned when Morales in 1998 decided against seeking reelection to a third term with the wind still at his back from hauling in the tobacco windfall.

But a subdrama was playing out largely unseen. The settlement also meant billions in legal fees for the trial lawyers. And after Morales had left office, it came to light that he and an associate had hatched a scheme to steer some of that money for themselves.

The whole matter did not come to light until after Morales made an ill-fated bid for the 2002 Democratic nomination for governor. After first denying all wrongdoing, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and charges that he falsified income tax documents. He served four years in a federal prison.

'Junkyard Dog' Jim Mattox indicted, acquitted

Before being elected attorney general in 1983, Jim Mattox wore the moniker the "junkyard dog" of Texas politics as a badge of honor. He was a Democratic populist who relished a bare-knuckle brawl and served six years in the Legislature before working six more in Congress, and it seemed to matter little whether his opponent was a Democrat or a Republican.

In his first term as attorney general, Mattox got crosswise with the giant law firm Fulbright & Jaworski because one of its lawyers was questioning his sister, who was involved in a high-dollar legal dispute over oil royalties. Then-Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, brought a commercial bribery indictment against Mattox, charging him with illegally threatening Fulbright & Jaworski's lucrative bond business.

The case went to trial just as Mattox was gearing up his campaign for a second term — and a conviction probably would have ended his political career, not to mention if he received a prison term of up to 20 years and a fine of up to $5,000.

A combative Mattox blamed "Mobil Oil and Exxon and all the other big corporations" for orchestrating the indictment and immediately went on the offense.

"What you're hearing is just the battle sound of a revolution that started at the last election," news outlets at the time quoted him as saying.

A jury acquitted Mattox, and he easily won reelection in 1986. His political career sputtered after that. He lost the 1990 Democratic nomination for governor to Ann Richards, and eight years later his bid to regain the attorney general's office was thwarted by John Cornyn, who is now Texas' senior U.S. senator.

Mattox died in 2008 at 65.

Wagonner Carr wrongfully sullied by Sharpstown

It was not Waggoner Carr's four years as attorney general that put him in legal jeopardy. Carr, who served from 1963 to 1967, found himself caught up in the infamous Sharpstown stock fraud scandal that in 1971 derailed several once-promising political careers.

A lawyer in private practice at the time, having lost bids for governor and U.S. senator, Carr was indicted on federal charges of securities fraud and conspiracy. He and an associate were accused of defrauding a life insurance company of $582,000 to repay personal debts.

After being cleared, Carr told reporters at a news conference at the time (still available on YouTube) that he was "subject to guilt by association."

"That's just the way that human beings think," said Carr, who died at 85 in 2004.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: A look at Texas attorneys general in legal trouble before Ken Paxton