Ex Fresno-area Congressman TJ Cox sentenced to prison following fraud conviction
Former Fresno-area Congressman TJ Cox was sentenced to one year and one month in prison Monday after being convicted of two counts of fraud.
The Democrat appeared before U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd on Monday about 10 months after changing his plea to guilty in February on two counts — wire fraud and wire fraud affecting a financial institution — while prosecutors agreed to drop 24 other counts.
The sentence follows more than three years of hearings after Cox surrendered to the FBI and was arrested in August 2022.
He will also be under two years of supervised release once he has completed his prison time. The judge also ordered him to pay $100,000 to one of the victims, who spoke in court.
The judge also said he would recommend to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to allow Cox to serve some portion of his sentence in a halfway house or under house arrest, which would be under their discretion based on the amount of available space.
A number of people spoke on his behalf before the sentencing. Cox spoke to The Bee briefly outside the courtroom.
“At the end of the day, I’m blessed. I’ve got great family, great friends, the support of the community, which was reflected there. The judge certainly recognized that,” he said. “So I can’t say I’m happy having anything imposed at all, but I’m looking at the bigger picture. Yeah, I’m going to continue serving this community, supporting my family and being the man that people know me to be.”
Cox’s attorney, Mark Coleman, argued his client was a businessman trying to make ends meet, and he had no ill intentions.
“Character counts and TJ, he made some tremendous missteps, and sometimes business people take shortcuts, which in federal law are illegal,” Coleman said. “And he acknowledged that, and he’s paying the price for it, but he’s lucky to have friends and family that support him.”
Coleman asked the court to give Cox probation and house arrest, which the judge said would not have been a reasonable and fair sentence for Cox after multiple. Prosecutors asked for three years and five months.
“It was multiple frauds. Even fraud within frauds,” Drozd said to Cox in the courtroom. “It was not all just well-intentioned.”
Cox served a two-year term representing the 21st Congressional District in 2019 and 2020 after defeating Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, in 2018 and then losing to Valadao in 2020 in a tightly contested district that runs between Fresno and Kern counties.
Prosecutors said Cox stole more than $1.7 million in diverted client payments and company loans and investments. They also alleged Cox created false records and a fraudulent loan guarantee in order to secure a $1.5 million construction loan through a sports nonprofit for improvements at Granite Park, a sports complex in Fresno.
Accusations of campaign and tax fraud
The indictment alleged Cox defrauded his company and clients while he was the owner and managing member of a company that uses tax credits to provide incentives for investment in development projects in disadvantaged areas.
Prosecutors accused him of diverting clients’ deposits, payments, fees and wire transfers from a legitimate bank to an account his partners were not aware of.
The indictment also details six instances in 2018, prior to his election to Congress, in which Cox allegedly withdrew tens of thousands of dollars from the California Bank & Trust account and deposited them into his personal account at the bank.
The indictment alleged that during the run-up to the 2018 congressional election, Cox “knowingly and willfully devised a scheme and plan whereby he used family members and business associates as prohibited conduits through which to funnel money in his personal possessions to his campaign under the guise of lawful campaign contributions.”
Loans and investments
Investigators also accused him of using the tax credit company to obtain a $1.5 million loan for a sports nonprofit for work at the long-troubled Granite Park recreation development at Cedar and Dakota avenues.
In 2019, the sports nonprofit defaulted on the construction loan, and the lender sought to enforce the fraudulent tax credit company’s guarantee of the loan.
Prosecutors also alleged he obtained fraudulent loans for an almond processing company.
This story was originally published December 15, 2025 at 6:21 PM.
