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Defense team in Walmart mass shooting case donates to DA candidate Alma Trejo [1]

['Diego Mendoza-Moyers', 'More Diego Mendoza-Moyers', 'El Paso Matters']

Date: 2024-02-29

Each of the three lawyers defending the suspect in the 2019 racist mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart have donated money to Alma Trejo, one of three Democrats running in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for district attorney.

Joe Spencer, the accused gunman’s lead defense attorney, donated $500 to Trejo’s campaign in mid-January. Mark Stevens of San Antonio also gave Trejo $500 in January, and Felix Valenzuela, an El Paso-based attorney, gave Trejo just under $100 in early February.

Since he was appointed in late 2022, El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks has clashed repeatedly with Spencer’s team over when to set a trial date in the state’s death penalty case against the accused shooter, Patrick Crusius. The defense lawyers have accused Hicks of playing politics with the case and burying them in terabytes of case files, delaying the trial. Hicks has said defense lawyers have had access to the vast majority of the evidence for more than four years and should be ready for trial.

Meanwhile, Trejo and James Montoya, another candidate running for district attorney, have signaled they would at least consider dropping the state’s death penalty case against Crusius and instead pursue life in prison. That’s the same outcome in the case that the gunman’s defense team is pursuing.

The third Democratic candidate, Nancy Casas, has said she can’t discuss the Walmart case because 409th District Judge Sam Medrano Jr., who’s presiding over the Walmart case, issued a gag order prohibiting lawyers involved in the case from publicly commenting on the case. The County Attorney’s Office, which is not involved in the Walmart mass shooting case, didn’t respond to questions about whether the gag order actually applies to county attorneys.

Spencer – who has contributed to other district attorney and judicial candidates in the past – told El Paso Matters Wednesday that he hasn’t discussed the Walmart case with Trejo. But he said he donated to her because of his experience trying cases against Trejo when she was prosecutor in the 1990s, and then later going in front of her when she was on the bench as a judge.

He said he didn’t know how Trejo would proceed with the Walmart case if elected, and his donation was not based on “who I want to work with on the Walmart case.”

Alma Trejo

“I’ve had a lot of experience with Judge Trejo as a prosecutor. In all the time that I had cases against her, she never hid any evidence. She never misled me about any evidence,” Spencer said. When he later encountered Trejo as a judge, Spencer said she was always a “straight shooter.”

“I have never had a conversation with Judge Trejo about the Walmart case,” he said. “But I do believe, based on my experience, she will look at the case and make a decision on what would be judicially correct as opposed to what is politically correct.”

Spencer said he wasn’t surprised his co-counsels also donated money to Trejo. He said many lawyers donate in the district attorney race because they have to interact with the DA regularly.

“As lawyers, we are the people that actually can police the candidates a little better than the public, simply because we deal with all the candidates in the courthouse on a day-to-day basis,” Spencer said.

Crusius pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes and weapons charges last year after the U.S. Justice Department decided not to seek the death penalty in the Walmart shooting case. He was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in prison.

In pleading guilty, Crusius admitted that he drove 10 hours from his home in North Texas to El Paso on Aug. 3, 2019, and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle at the Cielo Vista Walmart, killing 23 people and wounding 22 others. Shortly before entering the Walmart, he posted a screed on the internet saying he was acting to stop “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

The Justice Department has declined to say why it didn’t seek the death penalty on federal charges, but during the sentencing hearing in July 2023, defense lawyers said Crusius had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental health condition.

This election season, Spencer also donated $250 each to Marlene Gonzalez and Lyda Ness-Garcia, who are both running to be judges in separate family law courts.

“I don’t do any family law,” Spencer said. “But I gave to them because I feel they would better serve the community as judges.”

Stevens, Valenzuela and Trejo did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The donations from Crusius’ defense team are relatively small. Trejo has raised just over $34,000 in campaign donations since entering the race in October, including $3,000 from the Lozano Meza Law Firm and $2,000 from Juan Mimbela, owner of the construction firm Mimbela Contractors.

Trejo’s campaign has also received $2,000 from Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso, a vocal opponent of the death penalty.

Trejo’s two opponents in the Democratic primary have outraised her campaign, although both Casas and Montoya entered the race in the first half of last year, months ahead of Trejo.

Montoya has led the way by bringing in $69,000 in donations, while Casas has raised just over $49,000 as of Feb. 24. Montoya also took out a $40,000 loan, while Trejo is funding her campaign in part with a $10,000 loan and has spent $97,000 of her personal funds on the race since the start of the year.

James Montoya

Montoya’s biggest donors so far include attorney James Rey, who gave him $3,500. Linda Estrada, a candidate for a criminal court judge seat, gave Montoya $3,000.

Casas’ campaign received a $5,000 injection in mid-February from Noe Valles, a Lubbock-based attorney with the Glasheen, Valles & Inderman injury law firm. Her other bigger donor was an Eastside resident named Felix Casas, who gave $3,450.

The three candidates have collectively spent $313,000 on their campaigns, but Trejo has emerged as the biggest spender in recent months since entering later than her opponents.

Trejo’s campaign reported $141,000 in total expenditures – and nearly $113,000 since Jan. 1, with most of that coming from the more than $97,000 of her personal funds.

Nancy Casas

Casas has reported nearly $111,000 in campaign expenditures, including paying over $72,000 to Y Strategy, an Austin-based political consulting firm. Casas has put over $82,000 of her own money into the campaign.

Montoya’s campaign has spent just over $61,000 total. Of that, Montoya has paid from his own funds or charged to a credit card over $25,000 in expenses.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/02/29/election-2024-district-attorney-candidates-walmart-shooting-lawyers/

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