El Paso District Attorney candidate James Montoya said campaign fliers that arrived in voters’ mailboxes in the last minutes of the primary runoff election were a “smear campaign” spearheaded by State Assemblyman Joe Moody.
Montoya said the flier misrepresented the facts of one of the most notorious criminal cases in El Paso history, the Daniel Villegas case. The headline on the political flier read, “Corrupt Cops Sent an Innocent Teen to Jail. James Montoya Tried to Keep Him There.”
“We had sufficient evidence to proceed with a trial,” Montoya said of Villegas’ case. “We believe there was sufficient evidence to proceed with a trial. Our only motivation when we were working on this case was to find out who committed this death penalty murder.”
The fliers began arriving in voters’ homes on May 22, three days after early voting began for the Democratic primary runoff election. The fliers claim they were paid for by the “Joe Moody Campaign.”
Montoya, who received the most votes in the March 2024 primary, is in a tight race against Alma Trejo for the Democratic nomination for district attorney in the 34th Judicial District, which includes El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson counties.
The primary runoff election is Tuesday, May 28. The winner of the Montoya-Trejo runoff will face off against District Attorney Bill Hicks in the November general election.
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Moody, an El Paso Democrat, has worked throughout this election cycle to draw attention to the Villegas case.
“Daniel’s story is an important story that needs to be told and it’s something I feel very strongly about,” Moody said. “I think it’s a very complicated story that people need to understand, and there was certainly new information there that I didn’t know until I saw the transcript that the El Paso Times published with Daniel’s op-ed.”
The recording shows a conversation between two El Paso Police Department officers discussing the case, with one officer saying “the kid is innocent,” while the other officer says it’s up to the district attorney to decide whether to move forward with the case and take it to trial.
An El Paso jury acquitted Villegas of murder during a third trial in 2018.
Trying the Villegas case before a jury of El Paso residents was the right choice, Montoya said, adding that 409th District Judge Sam Medrano Jr. ruled the case should go to trial and did not dismiss it for insufficient evidence.
“The whole purpose of a jury trial, especially a jury trial in a difficult case, is to have representatives of the community decide the sufficiency of the evidence,” Montoya said. “In very strong cases, defendants plead guilty. In very weak cases, cases are dismissed. The cases that go to trial are the ones that the community has to decide.”
Montoya said he sees Moody as playing a key role in the race to win the district attorney position in 2028.
“It’s becoming clearer than ever that his entire campaign is the result of backroom deals to keep the district attorney’s seat warm if Mr. Moody decides to run,” Montoya said. “No one knows why he’s not running this year, but I suspect it has at least some influence because the Walmart case is still pending and he is a staunch opponent of the death penalty in all cases.”
“His attempt to disparage me is a distraction from the real issues facing the District Attorney’s Office. The District Attorney’s Office is suffering right now. The District Attorney’s Office needs leadership now, and it definitely doesn’t need leadership from someone who views the District Attorney’s office as a retirement job or an easy landing spot. I trust that our community will see through their opportunistic schemes.”
more:I was innocent. DA candidate James Montoya tried to send me to prison anyway: Daniel Villegas
Moody denies he has any political ambitions for the district attorney position and remains focused on serving the El Paso community in his current position as a state representative.
“I have no intention of running for district attorney,” Moody said. “I have thought about it a lot, both in 2020 and in 2024. I have been approached many times to run. I have considered it. I have looked at that option very seriously and had many conversations.”
Audio recordings of meetings discussing district attorney candidates
The El Paso Times obtained a recording of a July 6, 2022 meeting between Moody, Trejo, the El Paso Walmart shooter’s attorney Joe Spencer and attorney Amanda Enrique, who was considering running for district attorney at the time.
Enriquez, who serves as Montoya’s campaign finance manager, said he felt “intimidated and bullied” during meetings aimed at blocking Montoya’s bid for the district attorney position. Moody, Trejo and Spencer have denied the allegations.
“I was deeply concerned that the purpose of this meeting was to prevent and intimidate me from running for office, and I wanted to protect myself,” Enriquez said. “I knew recording the meeting was the only way to accomplish that. At the time, I was considering running for office, given how disastrous Yvonne Rosales’ tenure had been. After seeing her egregious abuse of power, it was very important to me that the next district attorney be a fair and just leader.” Enriquez later withdrew from the district attorney race.
“Having worked with James for a long time and seeing how determined he always was to be a great District Attorney for our community, I wanted to help him achieve his goals and turn the office around,” Enriquez said.
During the meeting, Enriquez, Spencer, Moody and Trejo discussed the failures of then-District Attorney Yvonne Rosales and who should run against her in the Texas House of Representatives election, which ended with Rosales stepping down in December 2022. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed District Attorney Hicks to complete Rosales’ term.
Moody said at the meeting that he was considering running for district attorney. Moody, Spencer and Trejo agreed that Moody would be the most likely to raise money in a race against Rosales.
During the meeting, Trejo said he has a “Plan Z” to run for district attorney.
When asked what she meant by “Plan Z,” she told the El Paso Times that she meant “Plan Z” to mean not running for district attorney.
“That means I was not running for district attorney,” Trejo told the Times. “Z is the last letter in the alphabet, so that means I was not running for district attorney. I had no intention of running for the district attorney’s office at that point. To be honest with you, I didn’t make a decision until 2023, when I found out that the two candidates who were running for the district attorney’s office had the same qualifications as the previous district attorney. That’s when I made my decision. That’s when I considered it.”
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Moody, an advocate for the justice system and the abolition of the death penalty, and Spencer, whose client is facing the death penalty in the El Paso Walmart case, denied that they supported Trejo because they believed he would not seek the death penalty in the Aug. 3, 2019, shooting.
Trejo said he had not yet decided how he would handle the Walmart case if elected, adding that Spencer and Moody would not be involved in the decision on whether to seek the death penalty. Spencer and Moody said they had not discussed with Trejo about mass shooters facing the death penalty.
Walmart’s lawsuit is still pending in state district court.
Should Villegas have had a third trial?
Montoya was the state prosecutor who handled the Villegas case. At the time, District Attorney Jaime Esparza decided to try the case. Esparza, who is now the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, is barred by federal law from campaigning or discussing elections.
When asked by The Times whether Esparza made the right decision in trying Villegas for a third time, Trejo, who previously worked under Esparza in the district attorney’s office, said only that there were “red flags” in Villegas’ case.
“I think there are enough red flags in this case that it needs to be looked at very carefully,” Trejo said. “Because three young people, 15 and 16 years old, were intimidated by police officers and coerced into making statements and confessions, I think this case really needs to be investigated.”
Moody previously supported Montoya when he ran against Rosales in 2020. Moody said he supported Montoya because he was the best option “of two bad options.”
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“I thought he was a better candidate than Yvonne Rosales,” Moody said, “and in politics, often times you have to choose between two bad options. But I don’t think that’s the case now. El Paso voters can choose a very capable district attorney in Alma Trejo. And the second reason is that I now know I was wrong, based on the conversations I had with Montoya at the time.”
“I believed he was open to progressive, thoughtful policies and would make our justice system fairer, more effective and more ethical. However, after the last election, and especially after learning new facts about Villegas’ prosecution, he has shown that this is not true.”
He said Montoya “is reprehensible for using the Walmart incident as a divisive issue in a political campaign. This incident tells me everything I need to know about him.”
Montoya denied he was using the Walmart shooting for political purposes, saying it was the most important event to El Paso voters and he wanted to know how candidates would handle it.
“This is an issue that is at the forefront of the minds of El Paso residents,” Montoya said. “The district attorney’s job is to prosecute cases. This is the most heinous crime that has occurred here. This is the fundamental responsibility of the prosecutor’s office. Voters want to know where we stand.”
Aaron Martinez can be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com or on Twitter @AMartinezEPT.
