Gov. Greg Abbott’s top advisers used Texas' funeral regulation agency to escalate an investigation into a Plano mosque — a move motivated by politics and religious bias, former agency staffers allege.
Sarah Sanders and Christopher Burnett, attorneys fired from the Texas Funeral Service Commission last year, told KERA News in interviews last week the commission already had an investigation into the East Plano Islamic Center, or EPIC, on the backburner based on allegations the mosque was performing funeral services without a license.
But the attorneys said after former executive director Scott Bingaman — who was also fired last year — mentioned the case to one of Abbott’s advisors, the goal of the governor’s office became political and discriminatory to prevent the mosque from obtaining a funeral license at all.
“I think from the get-go that it seemed to me that there was a rather orchestrated attempt to drum up controversy, outrage, whatever, about this, about anything having to do with EPIC,” Burnett said.
And in a recorded phone call obtained by KERA News, Alex Aragon, the governor’s budget and policy advisor, suggested last year that Abbott’s general counsel would be looking through state funeral codes to find a way to prevent EPIC from becoming licensed. Aragon proposed something like telling EPIC they couldn’t operate as a funeral home because of their “moral and ethics code.”
“The idea here is you don’t want them operating, period,” Aragon told Bingaman during the call.
That was about a month before text messages shared with KERA News showed the funeral agency’s then-presiding officer Kristin Tips sharing anti-Islam media and pictures of Muslim state representatives with Bingaman.
Bingaman declined to comment and directed requests for interviews through his attorney, who was not available to talk.
Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott's press secretary, said in a statement it is "necessary and common" for the governor's staff to work with executive agencies like the Texas Funeral Service Commission.
"The Governor has been clear that state-sponsored DEI practices violate the Constitution and that entities seeking to impose Sharia law in our communities are not welcome in Texas," Mahaleris wrote. "Thanks to the Governor's decisive leadership, state agencies are eliminating unlawful discrimination in awarding government benefits, and efforts to create Muslim-only 'no-go zones' have been stopped in their tracks.”
KERA News reached out to Tips, the attorney general’s office and the Texas Funeral Service Commission and will update this story with any response.
EPIC and the proposed Muslim-centric housing development in North Texas previously known as EPIC City have drawn the ire of Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republicans who accuse the mosque of discriminating against non-Muslims and attempting to enforce "Sharia law" in Texas.
A pending investigation
EPIC had a funeral home license that expired in 2022. A now-deleted portion of the mosque’s website stated EPIC partnered with Rahma Funeral Home to provide funeral services, which has been operated by a licensed funeral director since 2004.
TFSC typically begins investigating potential violations of funeral laws upon receiving a complaint. Sanders said the commission had a backlog of cases to investigate, and the allegation against EPIC was one of them. She thought it was a run-of-the-mill case, she said.
It’s normal to draft cease-and-desist letters to people suspected of violating funeral laws, Sanders said. But last March, Bingaman told her to send her draft of the cease-and-desist for EPIC to the governor’s office and work with Abbott’s staff on it. She didn’t understand why but went along with it.
Under normal circumstances, the commission sends law enforcement a letter informing them to be on the lookout for any suspected illegal funeral activity associated with a complaint, Sanders said. But she said the governor’s office instead stated in its version of the cease-and-desist that EPIC would be referred directly to the Collin County District Attorney.
“Having not done criminal law ever, it took me a minute to realize how strange this was,” Sanders said. “I guess I did not want to understand everything that was going on.”
Days later, Abbott announced the Texas Funeral Service Commission sent the cease-and-desist letter ordering EPIC to stop its alleged illegal funeral service operations, signed by Bingaman.
It became one of at least five state investigations by the Texas attorney general and other agencies into EPIC and its proposed Muslim-centric housing development, formerly known as EPIC City. That included a criminal probe, and a U.S. Justice Department investigation prompted by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.
In a March 25 post on X, Abbott said “a dozen” state agencies were investigating the project but did not cite what specific laws were being violated.
When the cease-and-desist became public, Sanders spent all day on the phone with Abbott’s attorneys. Tips, she said, was working closely with Sanders and Bingaman, standing over Sanders’ shoulder dictating what she would say to people on the phone.
EPIC later alleged in a lawsuit against the Texas Funeral Service Commission that the mosque has never operated as a funeral establishment. Instead, EPIC connected congregation members with funeral homes, performed funeral prayers and helped the families wash and shroud the bodies of their deceased in line with Muslim tradition.
The suit also claimed after receiving the cease-and-desist, 11 congregants died without receiving funeral rites at their home mosque.
“I did not realize, until I started getting calls in, that Muslims were getting scared because of what we had done,” Sanders said. “I did not realize the fear that the mosque might have been in, and I didn't understand that this was so different from our normal cases.”
Burnett recalled having a "very cordial" meeting with Bingaman and attorney Dan Cogdell around his first day at the funeral commission last May. Cogdell represents Community Capital Partners, developer of what is now known as The Meadow — formerly EPIC City.
"I thought the tenor the conversation was ... 'yeah, you guys kind of screwed up, but in the greater scheme of cosmic justice, this is not the worst thing in the world. There should be a path forward,'" Burnett said.
'I welcome the help'
Long before Bingaman signed off on the cease-and-desist, the governor’s chief of staff, Robert Black, invited him and other leaders of state regulatory agencies to an in-person meeting in January of 2025, Bingaman told Texas Monthly.
There, Bingaman said, Black told the agencies to remove mentions of DEI from their sites and tell the governor’s office about anything “politically sensitive” within their agencies. Bingaman said he believed he’d be fired if he didn’t comply.
After that, Bingaman said, he began looping in Aragon on funeral commission press releases and notable cases. Around the time of the public uproar about EPIC, Bingaman told Aragon about the investigation into the mosque that had been caught up in the backlog. Aragon told Bingaman he received a text from the governor saying the funeral commission “was his new favorite agency,” Texas Monthly reported.
Bingaman also told the magazine he agreed with broader concerns about EPIC creating a Muslim-only community in Texas.
Sanders and Burnett heard about the January meeting after the fact. Both told KERA News they believed Bingaman told the governor’s office about EPIC out of a sense of duty — and a feeling of fear, Sanders said.
“It's just getting really dark and dangerous in the Capitol right now, and I'm sure it's gotten worse,” said Sanders, who briefly worked for the Texas Real Estate Commission at the Capitol after being fired from the funeral commission. “I could tell that a lot of people were just afraid in there.”
Aragon enlisted the funeral commission’s help in crafting more allegations of wrongdoing against EPIC. Bingaman told Texas Monthly Aragon asked him to write a report to the Texas Department of Banking, requesting the financial agency investigate allegations EPIC was illegally reselling burial spaces.
The department told Bingaman and the governor’s office there was no course for action against EPIC.
Then the funeral agency’s probe expanded beyond EPIC. Sanders told KERA News Bingaman said the funeral commission would have to “go after every mosque in Texas” — something Sanders said she told him violated the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. Bingaman, according to Sanders, said it was about consumer protection, and if they needed to look at all houses of worship, they would.
“I do truly believe that Scott was naive in this as well,” she said. “I think that he genuinely did think that this was about consumer protection. I don't believe that he would really just want to shut down Muslim funeral homes.”
But Sanders said Bingaman, upon Aragon’s request, told her to delete emails sent between the funeral agency and the governor’s office. Sanders did not, she said — she instead requested a ruling from the attorney general's office about the emails. She also made PDFs of everything, put it on a secure legal hard drive and later sent it off to law enforcement.
Bingaman reprimanded Sanders in a letter, saying her actions had "caused issue with the Office of the Governor and placed the agency in a disparaging position."
Sanders doesn’t regret it.
“I did my duty to my clients and, frankly, to Texas," she said. "I got evidence out that needed to get out."
Sanders then said Aragon and Ezell offered her a job at the governor's office because of her work on the EPIC case. She ultimately withdrew her application.
Behind the scenes, a conversation between Bingaman and Aragon made clear the governor’s office’s intentions with the EPIC investigation. According to a recording of a phone call on April 14, 2025, Aragon let Bingaman know the governor’s Office of General Counsel was looking into the funeral code to see if there were ways to prevent EPIC from getting a license.
“They’ll look into seeing if there’s a way, like, ‘yeah, because you did these funeral things or because you are, you know, trying to implement a moral and ethics code in society, like, you cannot receive a license,’” Aragon told Bingaman.
Bingaman responded that funeral commissioners would take the allegations against EPIC into account when considering whether to grant the mosque a funeral license.
"That's the right track, because the commission can decide who gets a license and who doesn't," Bingaman said. "And if they've got violations on the books, I mean, in other words, they can't come in and plead that they were naive to the whole rule thing."
Aragon also suggested Bingaman ask Sanders to look into funeral law for potential paths forward.
Neither Burnett nor Sanders knew about the specifics of Bingaman’s phone call with Aragon, they told KERA News. The conversation was “legally not cool,” Burnett said, but added Bingaman had limited legal advice and did the best he could.
Sanders also said she was upset to hear Bingaman's phone call with Aragon. Still, she defended her former boss and said Bingaman never asked Sanders to look into ways to prevent EPIC from getting a funeral home license.
“The agency itself I don't think is the one doing it. It was Tips and Abbott just controlling everything, threatening us,” Sanders said. “We were all constantly scared. Scott was constantly scared of getting fired at all times.”
Cogdell, the attorney for EPIC's developer and Paxton's impeachment trial attorney, said in an interview with KERA News he wasn't aware of the governor's office's involvement in the case.
EPIC, he said, didn't concede to performing illegal funeral operations when he met with Bingaman and Burnett in May 2025. Like Burnett, he said he recalls the meeting being cordial.
"We were fine with finding a funeral home director if we could find one that was cost-effective," Cogdell said. "But none of that has anything to do with sharia law, no-go zones, Muslim-only, you know. Abbott was trying to use the funeral home commission for a larger purpose. Not to make sure they were in compliance with the funeral home laws, but to excoriate the Muslims."
Probes and firings
In its lawsuit against the Texas Funeral Service Commission, EPIC claimed the agency’s probe was an illegal overreach that violated state law and EPIC’s First Amendment rights. The suit also accused Abbott and Paxton of discriminating against the mosque for its religious practices, citing the officials’ comments on social media.
Shortly after the lawsuit was filed last July, the commission sent a letter signed by interim executive director Maria Haynes stating as a religious organization, EPIC would not be violating law for performing activities associated with Islamic tradition. Paxton’s office is the commission’s legal counsel in the case.
The letter came as a surprise to Abbott’s staff. The governor's spokesperson Mahaleris said in a statement to KERA News at the time that it was the first they’d learned of the agreement between EPIC and the funeral commission.
Aragon texted Sanders a link to KERA’s article with no accompanying message, according to a screenshot Sanders shared with KERA News. She said during a phone call with Abbott’s general counsel Trevor Ezell, he told her the attorney general’s office had “a lot of explaining to do.”
KERA News reached out to the funeral commission about the status of its investigation into EPIC and will update this story with any response.
It’s been nearly a year since funeral commissioners fired Bingaman. He later sued, claiming his firing was unlawful and that he did his duty in blowing the whistle on presiding officer Tips allegedly lobbying the Texas Legislature illegally. Sanders and Burnett were fired last July with no cause given.
Tips left her post in April. It remains unclear why, but it came after KERA's and the Houston Chronicle’s reporting about the agency suffering turmoil before and during Tips’ tenure. The governor quietly appointed commissioner Eric Opiela to replace Tips and appointed two new commissioners.
When asked about Tips' text messages and the walking back of claims in TFSC's investigation at an EPIC-related press conference in September, Abbott only said the investigation into EPIC was prompted by a complaint made by another provider.
It's not clear if any of the investigations into EPIC have shown evidence of wrongdoing.
The DOJ ended its probe into EPIC’s proposed development a month after it began. The Texas Workforce Commission came to an agreement with EPIC in September dismissing allegations that The Meadow discriminates against non-Muslims in violation of the state’s fair housing laws. A Travis County judge ordered the workforce commission in April to comply with the agreement after The Meadow’s developer alleged the agency wasn’t being responsive.
The mosque, however, remains the subject of probes.
Attorney General Ken Paxton blocked the Travis County judge's order soon after, using his position to supersede the ruling with an appeal. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development started its own investigation this year over similar discrimination allegations. Paxton also told the state securities board he has evidence EPIC violated securities laws and sued the mosque as a result.
Burnett, a self-described staunch Republican and Orthodox Christian, says he does feel there are questions about the role of Islam in "Western democracy." And he does believe EPIC was operating as a funeral home without a license.
“But does that mean the death penalty, that these people need to be drummed out of the business and never to be heard from again or anything like that?” Burnett said. “No, that was never the intent. Never.”
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA’s law and justice reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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