SAN ANTONIO – Earlier this month, staff, supporters and participants of Reflejo Court lined up at commissioners court and pleaded with the elected body to not defund the treatment program for first-time domestic violence offenders.
People who had gone through the program talked about the key role it played in helping them turn their lives around.
“Taking this program away wouldn’t just take away support. It would take away opportunity. Not just from me, but from others that are trying to change their lives,” said one former participant.
“Please do not allow biases, ignorance or personal vendetta to stand between helping this city of San Antonio to a point of reduced recidivism and healed, whole families,” said another supporter.
One issue: the treatment court was not on the chopping block.
“This is not an attempt to defund the program,” Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores encouraged everyone who showed up to speak to continue being civically engaged before stating pointedly: “You also need to educate yourselves.”
Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody had pulled an item for discussion from the consent agenda that would have approved the submission of a grant application for additional funding for Reflejo Court.
The grant application, for around $273,000 in funding from the Office of the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division, eventually passed unanimously.
Speaking to KSAT Investigates days after the meeting, Moody said it was more than appropriate to talk over the next steps for the court. Its founder, Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, had been indicted the previous week on felony and misdemeanor charges.
Speedlin Gonzalez, who has also been suspended without pay due to the indictment, is accused of having a defense attorney handcuffed and kept in a jury box during a heated altercation in her courtroom in late 2024.
In footage initially shared on social media by a supporter and subsequently removed, Speedlin Gonzalez said she was innocent of all charges. She did not respond to requests seeking comment for this story.
The judge’s indictment came weeks after KSAT Investigates revealed the incident publicly and spoke with former staff members who worked in Reflejo Court. They described Speedlin Gonzalez’s behavior as becoming increasingly erratic last year.
“Obviously, given the indictment and now the suspension of Judge Gonzalez, what does that mean for the court? Because I wanted to make sure this grant made sense regardless of whether Judge Gonzalez was there and that’s just good governance,” Moody said. “Clearly, there’s been a lot of troubling reports. The indictment’s concerning and lots of questions about judicial temperament from Judge Gonzalez.”
The Reflejo docket is currently being presided over by County Court at Law 4 Judge Alfredo Ximenez, while a rotation of visiting judges are handling cases in Speedlin Gonzalez’s primary court: County Court at Law 13.
Former Reflejo defendant said Speedlin Gonzalez preyed on emotions of program participants
Precilia Sayon entered Reflejo Court in 2024 after her attorney advised her it was the best way to get a misdemeanor family violence charge permanently removed from her record.
The promise of expungement is a driving force for the program, which requires participants to go through counseling and meet other court requirements.
Speedlin Gonzalez, who presided over the docket until being suspended without pay by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct earlier this month, is credited with founding the treatment court six years ago.
But Sayon said her hopes of graduating from Reflejo were dashed after several uncomfortable courtroom appearances in front of Speedlin Gonzalez.
“She’d prey on emotions. People cry in there and she feeds off of that. And then when you don’t cry or you don’t show emotion, it makes her mad,” Sayon said. “You could see her get excited. Just watching her tear you down, because in a sense she can say that she built you back up.”
Sayon said the last straw for her came late last April when the judge ordered her to spend a weekend in the Bexar County jail.
Court officials accused Sayon of tampering with a drug monitoring patch she wore while on a week-long vacation in Hawaii.
The trip, according to Sayon, included multiple physical activities like hiking, surfing, swimming and extended time on the beach that left the patch weathered.
“When I was in jail for that weekend, the only thing I could think about was ‘this is just not for me,” Sayon said. “The people in the program, they’re all scared. No one wants to say anything. Everyone just kind of conforms and just goes along with whatever she (Speedlin Gonzalez) has to say. Constantly having to hear somebody telling you that you’re something that you’re not is just kind of crazy.”
Sayon’s case was removed from Reflejo in early May and returned to its previous assigned court, records show.
A second participant told KSAT she dropped out of Reflejo after Speedlin Gonzalez informed her the program was more important than the defendant’s children or job.
A current Reflejo participant took part in a lengthy off-camera interview with KSAT but said the court would punish her if she revealed her identity.
She said the judge forced her to admit she was an addict in court, even though she’s never abused drugs or alcohol.
State reports have described Reflejo as underperforming for years
Biennial reports from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have described Reflejo as falling short of expectations since 2022.
A treatment court that projects to serve 100 participants a year has accomplished just a fraction of that, data compiled by TDCJ shows.
The most recent publicly available report, authored in December 2024, shows that the court had only 20 participants in the program at the close of the 2024 fiscal year.
Court staff blamed the low number of participants on a lack of awareness.
It’s worth noting that KSAT has reported so extensively on Reflejo Court that it has its own topic page on the station’s website.
The court had a success rate of over 83% for fiscal year 2023 and 75% for fiscal year 2024, state records show.
Speedlin Gonzalez says if ‘they’ take her down there will be a domino effect
Speedlin Gonzalez and her criminal defense attorneys have not responded to repeated requests from KSAT for an interview following the judge’s Jan. 29 indictment.
Speedlin Gonzalez addressed the criminal case at length earlier this month at a gathering of local Democratic Party candidates who are on the March 3 primary ballot.
Footage of Speedlin Gonzalez’s remarks was recorded by a supporter and then posted to social media.
The lengthy clip was later deleted. KSAT Investigates, however, had already obtained a copy of it.
Below are Speedlin Gonzalez’s full remarks:
“This is a tough time for me. All of you know what is going on. I’m going to tell you this: when they come for me, they come for every woman in the room. When they come for me, they come for every Latina in the room. When they come for me, they come for every first-generation child of an immigrant, because that’s what I am. When they come for me, they come for every bilingual person in the room. I didn’t speak English until I was three and a half, four years old. My first language is Spanish. When they come for me, they come for everybody here that’s from South Texas that has made their way in the world and is now having a stable, successful life. When they come for me, they come for every LGBT person in the room. So, if you think you’re immune, it won’t take long. Because if they take me down, it’s a domino effect. I’m going to say this to you with my friends here today: I am innocent of all charges (cheers and applause). I can’t talk about the details of the case but I will say that and I believe in the justice system and I believe that this is going to vet out. They’re going to try to stretch it out. And we’re here for the long run. Stacy and I are committed to staying in the race and to stay and hang on until we have a determination. Rest assured I have the best lawyer in the whole state of Texas. Mark Stevens and his wife Stephanie Stevens (cheers and applause). On the civil side I have one of the best attorneys on the civil side: Deanna Whitley. And I have two appellate attorneys working on stuff up front and we’ve got a gentleman by the name of (Ben) Crump that is supposed to call me back. He’s interested in the civil rights suit. I don’t know how far that’ll do. But know for now the most important thing for us is to get out the vote and get to the primary and get past that primary. Early voting like Judge Michael Mery said starts on February 17th. The list of early voting polling sites are on my Facebook and Instagram. It’s really easy to find, folks. Just do a Google search for ‘early poll sites Bexar County 2026’ and it’ll drop down the entire list of early polling sites. So, get out to vote, bring the family, bring your friends. We can sweep this whole county. We can make this whole county blue if we come out to the primaries and give them a real flex and show the numbers out there. I appreciate your support. If you have any questions about what’s going on, I’d be more than happy to answer any questions one-on-one. Thank you very much (cheers and applause).”
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.