Judge may keep key videos out of Texas fight case

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By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A judge said Monday that she planned to keep a cell phone containing videos of orchestrated fights at a Texas facility for the mentally disabled out of evidence unless prosecutors find case law to change her mind.

District Judge Sandra Watts said she would likely grant a motion by a former employee at the Corpus Christi State School to suppress the evidence because it was essentially stolen property.

In March, almost 20 videos dating to 2007 were discovered on the cell phone that was found at a store and later turned in to police. The videos showed staff at the school forcing residents into late-night bouts, even kicking them to egg them on.

The videos of what police termed a "fight club" would have been prosecutors' most powerful evidence of the abuse. Losing that could make prosecutors' agreement giving another former school employee immunity in exchange for her testimony all the more important.

Eleven staff members were identified in the videos and six were charged. None of those charged still works at the school.

Former employee Timothy Dixon, 30, is believed to have shot the videos and is charged with multiple counts of causing bodily injury to a disabled person. His defense asked that the phone be suppressed.

At this point, Watts' decision would only apply to Dixon because it was his phone, she said. It could theoretically be used in the trials of the other defendants, though similar motions to suppress were expected.

Earlier Monday, David Herrera, who found the phone at a clothing store, testified that he picked it up thinking it was an iPod digital music player. Only after taking it home and finding the videos did he decide to offer it to two television stations. When they both passed on it, Herrera's girlfriend Linda Franco took it to an off-duty police officer, Herrera said.

Corpus Christi Police Officer Greg Shipley testified that Franco, an employee at the hospital where he worked contract security, showed him three videos on the phone.

In one, someone who appeared to be a janitor or staff member was assaulting a patient, Shipley said. On another, a staff member appeared to be squirting shampoo or some other substance onto the heads of patients while they were sleeping, he said.

Prosecutor Doug Mann had compared the phone to a $10 bill found on the sidewalk, arguing that the phone was abandoned and that while it was not initially taken to police, once Herrera saw what was on it, he tried to act.

Later, Watts called Herrera's testimony "extremely devastating to the state."

Mann declined to comment after Watts announced her inclination to suppress the cell phone.

Stephanie Garza, 21, was charged with a lesser crime for failing to intervene in the fights. Judge Jose Longoria, who was assigned her case, refused to transfer it to Watts and also refused to approve her immunity deal with prosecutors. Longoria said that the state could prove its case without giving immunity to someone criminally charged.

Longoria's order will go to an appeals court, where the state hopes to force Longoria to drop the case against Garza. The state obtained a stay on her case.

Ken Botary, Garza's attorney, said his client still had an immunity agreement with the district attorney that would be broken only if she refused to testify in the other cases.

Prosecutors also reached a plea agreement with defendant D'Angelo Riley, 23, another former employee. Riley pleaded guilty to three counts of causing injury to a disabled person, a third-degree felony. Riley's attorney Ray Gonzalez said he hoped to schedule Riley's sentencing for later this week.

The trial of another defendant, Jesse Salazar, was delayed until August.