SAN ANTONIO – Matthew Martin, a former San Antonio Police officer, was facing 39 counts of possession of child pornography and a charge for stalking before all charges were dropped. Ben Sifuentes Jr. represented Martin as an attorney and told KSAT this case should have never been filed.
According to the findings of fact, Matthew Martin and his ex-fiancée, Ashley Pacheco, ended their relationship in January 2021. Pacheco then moved out of the home after taking a phone that belonged to Martin. In July 2021, Pacheco went to the police station to report finding child pornography on the phone, then officers searched the phone.
According to the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals opinion, the transcription from San Antonio Police Department officer Wade McLeroy’s body-worn camera highlighted that the officers were aware that Martin’s ex-fiancée, Ashley Pacheco, stole Martin’s cell phone.
“It’s the phone that I found in the safe,” Pacheco told officers, according to the transcription. “Am I going to be in trouble for stealing his phone though?” Pacheco asked the officers.
SAPD officer Bryce Heywood told Pacheco “no” to her question about getting in trouble for stealing the phone. Pacheco later told the officers that she was “engaged” to Martin.
Two days after Pacheco initially informed police of what she found, a witness who also had a previous relationship with Martin told a detective that Pacheco told her to tap on any of the files on the phone and that one of the photos was “of the young girl, she was nude from the waist up.”
The court opinion also states that SAPD officer McLeroy said that Pacheco opened a file in front of him, and McLeroy “took possession of the phone to see if probable cause existed to seize the phone or at least proceed with writing a report.”
“Officer McLeroy testified he believed his authority to look through the phone arose because he understood that Pacheco and Martin were common law married, that the phone was community property, and that Pacheco had allowed him to look through the phone,” according to the Fourth Court of Appeals opinion.
The opinion also said “Officer McLeroy acknowledged that he was unaware of a requirement for common law marriage that the couple consider themselves and announce themselves married.”
However, in the transcription from the body-worn camera on the day Pacheco brought Martin’s phone to the police station, Pacheco told officer Heywood, “we were engaged,” referring to her ex-fiancé, Matthew Martin.
“The court determined that the phone was stolen in violation of the theft statute in Texas,” Sifuentes said in an interview with KSAT. “When we looked at what the witness said to police, that she searched through his phone by accessing passwords and so forth, so that is another offense, breach of computer security.”
Sifuentes said when SAPD officers searched the phone, they violated the Fourth Amendment which protects people from unlawful searches and seizures, considering Martin did not authorize Pacheco to have his phone.
“The detective that signed the affidavit omitted material information about the phone being stolen,” Sifuentes said. “That is a material omission under Franks v. Delaware that requires suppression of the evidence.”
In July 2022, Martin filed a Motion to Suppress Cell Phone Evidence and it was later granted for the reasons “the police officer conducted an illegal manual search of the Defendant’s cell phone; and the police authored a search warrant affidavit omitting substantive information in violation of Franks v. Delaware.”
“A warrant never should have been issued in the first place,” Sifuentes said.
When asked to clarify if Martin ever admitted to possessing child porn, Sifuentes said “that is not an issue in this case, in my mind, because number one, it doesn’t come into evidence at all.”
“But I think since the phone was in her custody for six months, there’s an issue as to how, whatever they did find, got on that phone, because he didn’t have it for six months and that was not used for a long time,” Sifuentes continued.
The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office said “Initially, the trial court, which handled this case, suppressed key evidence that was crucial in proceeding to trial.”
“In response, our office appealed the judge’s ruling to the Fourth Court of Appeals, which upheld the trial court’s decision,” the district attorney’s office said. “We then filed a petition for discretionary review to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which was denied. Given the absence of this critical evidence, we were unable to proceed with prosecution, so we had to close the case.”
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus was unavailable for an interview related to the case in time for publishing. McManus’ office did not provide a statement responding to an inquiry about officers violating the Fourth Amendment.
Martin resigned from SAPD in 2018 in lieu of a perjury charge from an unrelated case. He was accused of lying about a criminal case he was involved in as well as his own military history.
He didn’t face any charges in those cases.
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