CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx. — The case against an OBGYN physician indicted on 14 counts of sexual assault is headed back to court.
KRIS 6 News was the first to report that Calallen OBGYN Dr. Juan Villarreal was accused of sexually assaulting patients.
It also first reported the case against Dr. Juan Villarreal had been dismissed after it was discovered the Nueces County District Attorney's Office had misplaced files related to the case.
In a memorandum opinion from the Thirteenth Court of Appeals, the court found the decision to dismiss this case with prejudice was made in error. That case has since been remanded back to the trial court.
In that opinion, the court found that dismissal based on the loss of this evidence failed to demonstrate that the Nueces County DA's Office had lost or destroyed the evidence in bad faith.
"The State's inability to maintain a proper case management system and find evidence — however problematic — is not evidence of bad faith where it remains undisputed that the State does not know what happened to the lost evidence," according to the memorandum.
Defense attorneys also argued the prosecutor on the case had failed to timely notify them that evidence was missing and would have not disclosed it had he not been asked.
But, the DA's office argued it instead opted "to conduct an internal search for the lost evidence before immediately notifying Villarreal."
Visiting Judge Robert Pate, who initially ruled to dismiss these indictments, was re-assigned to this case earlier this month.
