AUSTIN — Attorney General Ken Paxton's pastor has sued the lead witnesses against him in his upcoming criminal trials.

Last week, Prestonwood Baptist Church Executive Pastor Mike Buster filed a lawsuit against Rep. Byron Cook and Florida businessman Joel Hochberg, the two men named on Paxton's fraud indictments. Paxton attends Prestonwood's main campus in Plano.

Buster alleges that Cook and Hochberg bilked him out of about a half-million dollars, described as "a substantial percentage of his personal net worth." Cook was manager of an energy asset management company that Buster says recommended he purchase mineral rights from Cook and Hochberg "at exorbitant markups and after very short holding times."

The asset management company did not disclose that its own managers would benefit from the sale, Buster adds, omissions he said in part caused him "to lose virtually his entire investment." Paxton, who was also manager of the company, is not mentioned in the suit.

Buster's lawyer, J. Mitchell Little, filed the suit in Collin County last Friday. Little is one of the lawyers defending Paxton against the criminal allegations by Cook and Hochberg.

Mike Buster, executive pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, filed suit last week against Rep. Byron Cook and Florida businessman Joel Hochberg, the two lead witnesses against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his criminal trials. (File Photo)

Buster's lawsuit is very similar to, and builds off, similar allegations lobbed against Cook and Hochberg earlier this year. That lawsuit was filed by Charles Loper III, who's in charge of Paxton's newly formed blind trust.

Paxton, a Republican, was indicted in July 2015 on two first-degree felony charges accusing him of defrauding Cook and Hochberg in a tech startup investment scheme. He is also accused of funneling clients to a friend's investment firm without being properly registered with the state.

He faces maximum penalties of 99 years in prison and tens of thousands of dollars in fines if found guilty. Paxton has flatly denied the allegations and blamed them on a political witch hunt perpetrated by Hochberg and Cook, also a Republican.

Paxton's first of two trials is scheduled to kick off in mid-September. Last week, a Dallas appeals court put the case on hold temporarily while it hears Paxton's demands to remove the judge presiding over the proceedings.