SAN ANTONIO – An Atascosa County resident has filed a petition of removal against 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Gossett Louis.
Louis is the D.A. over Atascosa, Frio, Karnes, and LaSalle counties.
KSAT 12 spoke to Ernest Trevino, a retired SAPD Officer, about his filing. He told us that he was fed up.
“She has been committing crimes for years and years, and nobody will investigate her,” Trevino said.
In 2017, Trevino was charged with illegal hunting and failing to properly register a car title. He claimed those charges came after he complained to a game warden about a hunter who was on his property illegally.
Trevino claimed Louis withheld information from the grand jury. According to the petition, those charges were dismissed two years later after the game warden handling the case admitted to using “white lies” to obtain search warrants.
In the petition, Trevino also accused Louis of violating her oath, official misconduct, official oppression, jury tampering and mishandling of a murder case in Wilson County.
Louis denied all of those claims.
“It’s just completely 100% false,” Louis said. “He is a disgruntled defendant who is very unhappy, and continues to attempt to use the lawsuit and the criminal justice system and the courts to try to slander and defame me and get me to cower.”
Louis also said Trevino filed lawsuits against her in Atascosa County, including one at the federal level. She said he also sent a letter to the state bar. All of the lawsuits were dismissed.
She believed it’s all a political attack right before the upcoming primary.
“This petition was only filed after I got an opponent, that is not a coincidence,” Louis said.
Texas law allows anyone the right to file a petition of removal for any elected official, including a district attorney.
“This is kind of an abuse of the court system, and it’s a frivolous suit that I think it will be transparent once again,” Louis said.
Trevino said none of this is politically motivated and that he filed the petition in December of last year after Louis made it difficult for him to remove his cases off his record.
“I’m not going to be intimidated, I’m not going to be lied to,” Trevino said.
Trevino’s expungement filing that was rejected last year was just accepted this week.
Louis said she had nothing to do with the filing and has had no conversations with the district clerks about it.
On Feb. 6, Sid Harle, the presiding judge of the Fourth Judicial Region of Texas signed an order appointing the Office of Guadalupe County Attorney and the Honorable David Wilborn to represent the state on behalf of Trevino. The filing stated they will decide how the case moves forward.
Below is a copy of the petition, we have redacted personal information and emails of individuals mentioned.