DALLAS – A judge on Wednesday ordered the release of a former Dallas police officer accused of ordering two murders in 2017 after prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to continue the case against him not.
After listening to the testimony by a Dallas detective, Audrey Moorehead, judge of the Dallas County Criminal Court, said there was no likely reason to detain Bryan Riser. According to the sheriff’s office in Dallas County, he was released from prison on Wednesday afternoon. The 13-year-old Dallas Police Department veteran was fired after his colleagues arrested him in March on charges of an alleged murder-for-rent scheme.
Riser speaks fleetingly as he leaves the jail. “This section I used to love … disrespected me,” Riser said.
Prosecutors do not agree with the detective’s judgment that they have enough evidence to prosecute.
“Where we currently stand as a district attorney’s office, we believe there is not sufficient reason for this case,” Dallas prosecutor Jason Fine told the judge.
An exchange between fine and detective Esteban Montenegro in court shows that the police and prosecutors discussed the case in December 2019, but that the prosecutors did not believe that the police had a fixed case. Fine also said prosecutors told police in March that they still did not think there was enough evidence.
Nevertheless, police arrested Riser, 37, in the murder of unrelated Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61. Police Chief Eddie Garcia said last month that a man came forward in August 2019 and told authorities he had abducted and killed them. Riser’s direction.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said Wednesday that prosecutors do not have enough “corroboration of co-accused and accomplice evidence,” but that the investigation remains open and prosecutors are still working with police.
In court, Montenegro acknowledged a problem with a statement in the police statement that led to Riser’s arrest. He said the allegation that Riser was at or near the place where the victims were killed was a mistake on my part.
In a revised arrest warrant released this week, the line was changed.
The former officer’s attorney, Toby Shook, maintained his client’s innocence, saying the evidence against Riser is little more than the word of a man convicted of other murders.
Authorities allege that Riser offered to pay three men to kidnap and kill Douglas and Saenz. The men were later charged with mastermind and one came forward and involved Riser in 2019, according to an affidavit for the arrest of the officer.
Shook had earlier said Riser knew one of the men charged with Saenz’s murder, Emmanuel Kilpatrick, of high school, and that they reconnected after a chance encounter in 2017. Kilpatrick, 34, is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of a father and son.
The lawyer described Kilpatrick as someone who “has every reason in the world to lie and try to gain an advantage by trying to involve a police officer.”
Detectives from Dallas were already interested in Riser in 2017. In September of that year, a detective in court said Riser was the “subject” of an investigation into Saenz’s murder, according to a transcript of the trial. In announcing Riser’s arrest, Garcia said the officer would become a ‘suspect’ in 2019.
The detective also said Saenz lived with Riser’s father and that she was a witness in another murder case before her death. The evidence came during a detention trial in a federal drug case against Riser’s father, Byron Riser.
Shook said Saenz lived with the older Riser at one point, but that his client did not have a relationship with her and did not know Douglas.
After Riser’s arrest, questions arose as to why he was allowed to serve as a police officer while he was being investigated, and the mayor formed a city council committee to investigate the matter.
Garcia told The Dallas Morning News that he stands behind the decision to fire Riser.
The newspaper reported that the records of internal affairs show that Riser has been investigated several times for procedural violations. In 2017, he faces three ongoing investigations into home affairs. And after his arrest, he was investigated for ‘adverse behavior’.
“I feel we have reached our threshold to deliver the administrative allegations through a preponderance of evidence,” Garcia said.