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The Texas Tribune
The Texas Tribune
National
Robert Downen

Houston GOP activist knew for years of child sex abuse claims against Southern Baptist leader, law partner

Paul Pressler Jared Woodfill Republican Party Southern Baptist Houston Steven Hotze the Southern Baptist Convention Lawsuit Behavior Sexual Misconduct
Then-Texas GOP party chairman candidate Jared Woodfill at the 2016 state Republican convention in Dallas on May 12, 2016.
Then-Texas GOP party chairman candidate Jared Woodfill at the 2016 state Republican convention in Dallas on May 12, 2016. (Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune)

In 2016, former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill received an urgent warning about Paul Pressler, his longtime law partner and a Southern Baptist leader. In an email, a 25-year-old attorney from Woodfill’s Houston firm said he’d recently gone to lunch with Pressler, who told him “lewd stories about being naked on beaches with young men” and then invited him to skinny-dip at his ranch.

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