SAN ANTONIO – An officer assigned to the executive protection detail of San Antonio Police Department Chief William McManus sent sexually explicit text messages to a woman while on the clock, records obtained by KSAT Investigates show.
Allegations against Officer Mark Castillo first surfaced in late May, after the woman’s husband called 911 to report the affair.
“I was in shock.”
Arturo Cisneros told KSAT he was at his East Side home with his wife on May 22 when he picked up her phone to review some appraisal documents.
The phone opened up to a text message thread between his wife of 33 years and Castillo.
“I asked her, ‘Hey, who is this Mark Castillo guy?’ And immediately she jumps up. And I knew something was wrong, so I ran into the bedroom, locked the door,” said Cisneros.
Cisneros said as he read a month’s worth of messages, which appeared to intensify sexually in the days before they were discovered, his wife banged on the door demanding her phone back.
Cisneros told KSAT he eventually called members of his family to tell them he found disturbing material on his wife’s phone and then called 911 to report the affair between Castillo and his wife.
Pressed by KSAT on why he would call 911 instead of an SAPD non-emergency number, Cisneros said, “I was in shock. I just wanted police to show up. It doesn’t matter which number.”
Cisneros knew that Castillo was an acquaintance of his wife and had met him on several occasions while accompanying his wife to City Council meetings and a North Side Las Palapas. Castillo would often visit the restaurant while McManus worked out at a nearby Gold’s Gym.
Cisneros said his wife eventually left the home without her phone and that his brother and sister-in-law arrived shortly before the officers.
An SAPD incident report states that Cisneros called police to report the affair but makes no mention of Castillo, and differs significantly from what Cisneros, his brother, his sister-in-law and even his wife have all said they told police that night.
The report states that Cisneros told dispatchers his wife fled from the location after hitting herself and later returned to the scene and asked police to look at her injured face.
According to the report, the woman, who KSAT is not identifying, told police that Cisneros “reached behind himself” and punched her once in the eye and once in the forehead.
Reached for comment, the woman told KSAT she had not asked police to look at her face and that the report was “wrong” and “inaccurate.”
Both she and Cisneros told KSAT that no physical altercation took place and at no point had Cisneros hit her.
The woman declined to tell KSAT how she injured her face.
Cisneros’ sister-in-law, Patricia Cisneros, described the report as “vague” and said it is not an accurate account of what took place at the home that night.
“The report itself, it lacks so many details. So many details,” said Patricia Cisneros.
Despite SAPD failing to take pictures of the woman’s injuries, officers arrested Arturo Cisneros for misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury-married.
Arturo Cisneros’ attorney, Carolyn Wentland, told KSAT they are now bracing for the possibility that his probation will be revoked in a 2016 aggravated assault of a public servant case in Blanco County.
Arturo Cisneros was accused of pointing a firearm at a then-Blanco County sheriff’s deputy who had responded to his property.
He said the deputy mockingly challenged him to retrieve his “broken gun” and that he later fired the weapon, a .22 rifle, into the ground to prove it still worked.
Arturo Cisneros was given eight years probation in the case in September 2017, according to Blanco County court records, meaning he was about 16 months from completing his community supervision when he was arrested for domestic violence.
“They wanted to protect Mark Castillo and it made it easier to arrest my client. We have a police report now that puts my client at risk of possibly going to prison,” said Wentland, who added that Arturo Cisneros could be sentenced to 10 years in prison if his probation is revoked.
“Ok, make sure to erase you messages. Ttyl.”
Castillo, a 23-year veteran of SAPD, has assigned working hours of Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. - 5 p.m., but may flex his schedule depending on meetings and events, an SAPD spokeswoman confirmed.
During the time period the messages were sent — late April to May 22 — Castillo missed only one day of work, city records obtained by KSAT through a public records request show.
Patricia Cisneros took nearly 50 pictures of the messages and then turned them over to police.
She told KSAT she then turned over the phone itself to SAPD internal affairs last month after investigators said they needed to collect specific timestamp information from the messages.
A review of the messages by KSAT Investigates shows many of them were sent during Castillo’s assigned working hours and while the officer wrote he was in close proximity to McManus.
In the same thread in which Castillo described a specific sex act with the woman, he wrote her, “Ok, make sure to erase you messages. Ttyl.” Castillo in the same thread then wrote, “Think Chief about to walk out.”
The messages on Wednesday, May 22 included Castillo and the woman graphically describing having sex with one another.
The thread began at 10:33 a.m., records show.
In another thread, Castillo wrote, “Damn, wanted to touch your legs.”
The woman texted back, “You still can. I’m headed over there now.”
Castillo then replied, “I’m still with Chief but he might be done soon.”
“Anybody who’s doing that on work hours is brazenly, brazenly wasting our tax dollars. They’re violating all kinds of rules that they shouldn’t be allowed to violate,” said Wentland.
The woman told KSAT she and Castillo did not have sexual intercourse but that they had kissed in a vehicle. She said she has since ended the relationship.
Castillo did not respond to a phone call or text message seeking comment for this story.
SAPD officials declined to make McManus available for an interview, telling KSAT in an email: “A complaint was filed with the Internal Affairs Unit, and this complaint is being investigated. The Department cannot comment on media inquiries that have not resulted in discipline as defined in Chapter 143 of the Local Government Code.”
An SAPD spokesman confirmed that Castillo remains part of McManus’ executive protection detail, which typically drives the chief to meetings and events and guards him at scenes.
To date, there has been no official release of records from the city showing that Castillo engaged in professional misconduct.
Those records would be made public only if Castillo is suspended for one day or longer.
There is, however, past precedent for SAPD officers being disciplined for sending inappropriate text messages.
Ofc. Juan Bruno was suspended for 20 days in late 2021 for sending text messages to a woman he had just met at a disturbance call.
The woman told police she never initiated the text message exchange with Bruno and stopped responding because the text messages made her feel “uncomfortable.”
The department issued a “no contact” order, barring Bruno from contacting the woman again.
The department’s investigation found that Bruno “brought reproach and discredit to himself and the department while he attempted to develop a personal relationship” with the woman.
Another member of chief’s security detail avoided discipline after 2021 incident
San Antonio Express-News investigative reporter Emilie Eaton published articles last year showing McManus rejected a recommendation to discipline another member of his protection detail in a May 2021 sexual misconduct case.
According to Eaton’s reporting, internal SAPD records confirmed Officer Robert Gonzales Jr. admitted to having a sexual encounter with a woman while he was in uniform in a vehicle parked outside police headquarters.
Gonzales was transferred out of the chief’s office following the incident, Eaton reported.
McManus previously told KSAT that state law prevents him from discussing the Gonzales case since no formal disciplinary action was taken.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.