Controversial Austin real estate developer Nate Paul was ordered Friday to report to the Travis County Jail later this week to serve a 10-day criminal sentence.
State District Judge Jan Soifer ordered Paul to begin serving the contempt sentence she first handed him last year on Nov. 15, saying he “continually refused” to comply with a court order warrant in a civil case accusing him of defrauding a nonprofit.
The sentencing had been postponed because Paul had appealed Soifer’s order. U.S. District Judge David Allan Ezra cleared the way Thursday for Soifer to sentence Paul to prison.
The civil case is separate from the federal indictment against Paul, who once appeared in Forbes magazine for building a real estate investment firm that amassed a $1 billion portfolio in 17 states of office buildings, shopping centers, apartments and student housing. Some of his major initiatives include the creation of Great Value Storage, a major player in self-storage facilities, and the purchase of the KPMG Tower in downtown Dallas.
More: Why Nate Paul was back in court and what his lawyers say about evidence in the case
Paul’s trial on an eight-count federal financial crimes indictment filed in June 2023 and a four-count follow-up indictment announced in November will begin early next year.
At a hearing late last month, a federal investigator testified that one of Paul’s former employees told him he witnessed Paul altering bank documents in an attempt to obtain a real estate loan.
The revelation came during a hearing in which Paul’s attorneys argued that the federal investigative process used to build the case against the developer was flawed and should be inadmissible at trial.
Paul was also part of the backstory of last year’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, on whom the state House overwhelmingly approved 20 indictments accusing the state’s top attorney of improperly accepting gifts and other favors from the developer. Paxton was later acquitted of the charges by the Texas Senate in a vote that was largely along party lines.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin real estate developer Nate Paul was sentenced to prison. This is why.
