JUDGE TO DA: HAND OVER DNA EVIDENCE TO CHEPE

By Juan Montoya
It took more than a year of wrangling in court, but on Monday, a judge said Joe Lopez could have the evidence he requested to appeal a conviction that sent him to prison for more than 20 years.
Visiting Judge Federico Hinojosa overruled objections by the Cameron County District Attorney's Office to the turning over of DAN and other evidence used by the prosecution to attain the sexual abuse conviction of Jose Manuel Lopez, the frontsman for the legendary Tejano band Supergrupo Mazz.
Hinojosa granted Lopez's attorneys the writ of mandamus and ordered the DA to produce all the items listed in their open records request they filed with that office.

was convicted in 2006 on two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

Since last November, Lopez, through his attorney Tim Hootman, has been seeking to have the DNA evidence found on a pair of green shorts worn by the then-minor relative he was convicted of crimes against re-tested by a neutral party.

However, the reply to the request was not answered by then-DA Armando Villalobos in a timely manner within the 10-days required and instead sought an opinion from the Texas Attorney General's Office attempting to have the opinion to justify his decision to have him from turning it over.

Lopez's appellate lawyer, Timothy Hootman, said that they had turned to the 445th State District Court to force the DA's office now under DA Luis Saenz to have the office turn over the evidence.

“All we want is modern and neutral testing,” Hootman said.

Assistant District Attorney Chris Gonzalez said that Lopez had access to the DNA evidence in 2005 during the discovery process leading up to the trial. Court documents support that statement.

Hootman, however, said Lopez never had the evidence tested.

“His lawyers did not do this. This is a DNA case. It lives and dies on DNA,” Hootman said, adding that Lopez’s defense lawyers never questioned the state’s DNA experts during trial or asked for a neutral tester. “The whole core is defense didn’t test DNA in a DNA case that lives and dies on DNA and the DA doesn’t want it re-tested.”

Lopez's supporters say that since the racketeering and bribery conviction of Villalobos in federal court, thye have been convinced that there was fabricating of evidence in their case as it was in other cases that were brought out in that trial.

In addition, they say that Michael Trejo, one of Lopez's attorneys, acted as a go-between for a referral payment from a wrongful death case in an obvious attempt to hide the fact that Villalobos was sharing in the multimillionaire verdict for the plaintiffs, his sister-in-law.

"This was less than three months before Mr. Trejo was representing Joe against Villalobos," said one of Lopez's supporters.  

The incarcerated music star's supporters say that aside from the DNA, numerous other inconsistencies were allowed including the fact that the victim – then 14 and pregnant several months – lied to the court when she said she didn't know who the father of her child was.

"She knew that it was her adult boyfriend's in Baytown," said one. "In fact, that boyfriends has said that he will come to the Valley if the case is retried to testify that he is paying child support for two children, including the one he fathered when she was just 13."