Federal investigators have spent years building a case against the Democrat who served in the US House from 2019 to 2021. On Tuesday, a judge unsealed the 28-count Grand Jury indictment against the former Democratic congressman. But because it went through a grand jury, Cox’s defense attorney told Action News he can’t comment yet because he doesn’t know what kind of evidence the government has. Legal analyst Tony Capozzi says that’s because of the plan. “The only people who appear before a grand jury are the U.S. attorney and an FBI agent, the case investigator and certain witnesses if the government calls them to testify before the grand jury,” Capozzi said. Cox faces a total of 28 charges – 15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering, one count of mortgage fraud and one count of illegal contributions to his 2017 congressional campaign. Prosecutors say he essentially stole about $1.7 million in loans and investments from his businesses. The grand jury found evidence that he defrauded investors in an almond processing company and a tax credit investment company, and lied to get loans for Granite Park and a mortgage. From 2013 to 2018, they say Cox opened “off-the-books” bank accounts and funneled client and company money into those accounts through false statements, pretenses and promises. Five of the felony charges involve Granite Park. The grand jury accused Cox of using his tax credit company to guarantee a $1.5 million construction loan. But prosecutors say he did this without the consent of his co-owners. That loan is now in default, and the city of Fresno could be called to repay it even though it didn’t guarantee the loan. Cox’s partner in Granite Park is Terance Frazier. He told Action News that he had no involvement with the loan and was unaware of the case against his partner. Capozzi says the indictment does not implicate any of Cox’s associates. “If they didn’t know what was going on, criminally I don’t think they have any exposure at all,” the legal analyst said. “In fairness, they might have had to know what was going on and not do their due diligence to make sure that wasn’t happening.” But Capozzi says more could come from federal investigations into local politicians. He says many of the charges will be difficult to prove, but the easiest may be the charge that Cox funneled his own money to other people, who then donated that money to his campaign. “You can watch it,” Capozzi said. “Obviously money was taken out of his account and they were writing to other people. They wrote their checks to the campaign, but it goes back to his account.” Cox turned himself in to the Fresno County Jail Tuesday morning. He made a virtual court appearance a few hours later and pleaded not guilty to all charges. A judge agreed to release him without bail as long as he surrenders his passport, agrees to a travel restriction, has no contact with witnesses in the case and is kept separate from any businesses involved. Capozzi says Cox is deeply troubled, but the evidence may not be as strong as the indictment. “Maybe they were loans,” he said of the money Cox transferred to his personal bank accounts. “We don’t know. We have to look at the documents and see why these things are happening.” In the political world, no one stepped up to defend Cox. Rep. Rudy Salas, the Democratic candidate for Cox’s former US House seat. told us that “TJ has embarrassed himself.” And Congressman David Valladao, who lost to Cox in 2019 and defeated him in 2021, says he tried to warn everyone. “We’ve all known for a long time that TJ was a shady person and that was just proven today,” said the Hanford Republican. The indictment does not implicate any of Cox’s partners, but Fresno City Councilman Gary Bredefeld says the investigation could still lead to City Hall. “We’ll see where this goes, but I’m grateful to law enforcement and the FBI for holding them accountable,” Bredefeld said. If Cox is convicted of all charges, the potential punishment is up to 105 years in prison, though Capozzi says it will be much less than that because of federal guidelines. The greater the loss prosecutors can prove, the greater the punishment, Capozzi said. Read the indictment below: Copyright © 2022 KFSN-TV. All rights reserved.
