Texas Feels the Fallout as Federal White-Collar Cases Decline

Paul Coggins, a partner in Troutman Pepper Locke’s White Collar Litigation + Investigations Practice Group, was quoted in the July 8, 2026, Texas Lawbook article, “Texas Feels the Fallout as Federal White-Collar Cases Decline.”

• Paul Coggins, a former U.S. prosecutor for the Northern District of Texas, said that he was troubled by the pattern. “Looking at these numbers, I would say white collar is being hampered,” said Coggins, who is now a partner at Troutman Pepper Locke in Dallas specializing in white collar defense.
• He was particularly troubled by the drop in federal environmental and tax sentences. “That is a reflection of the EPA in bringing these cases,” Coggins said. “And frankly, a reflection that the IRS has been starved of resources.”
• The DOJ has redirected tax investigators and FBI agents from their traditional duties to immigration enforcement, he said.
• “It shows this is the golden age of tax fraud. We used to make a lot of tax cases because the [Criminal Investigation Division] was the best in the world at tracking money,” Coggins said. “But they have been starved of funding.”
• …
• Coggins said he was concerned that the drop-off in federal white-collar prosecutions in Texas was more troubling than in other states, such as New York. In Texas, he said, county district attorneys rarely handle white collar prosecutions.
• “The DA’s offices in Texas, unlike the New York Manhattan district attorney’s office, do mainly reactive crime: murder, robbery, rape, burglary, theft, those types of crimes,” he said. “That consumes those offices. That means if a white collar case is going to get worked, it is likely going to get worked in the U.S. attorney’s office. If the U.S. attorney’s offices are not handling much white-collar work, that means nobody is doing it.”