SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio family is demanding answers after federal prosecutors moved to throw out the convictions of two New Mexico police officers found guilty in the tasing death of a local man \u2014 and the family says no one told them it was coming.<\/p>\n
Hector Nava, a San Antonio native and father of five, died on July 31, 2021, after being tased 14 times during a traffic stop in Jal, New Mexico. He was working an oil field safety job at the time.<\/p>\n
Two officers \u2014 Ceasar Enrique Mendoza and Robert Edward Embly \u2014 were convicted by a federal jury in February 2025 on criminal civil rights charges. A third officer, Corey Patrick Saffell, pleaded guilty and testified against the other two. Sentencing was scheduled for June 2025 but was never completed.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 5, 2026, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office filed an unopposed motion to dismiss all charges against Mendoza and Embly after a jury had already found them guilty. <\/p>\n
In their own court filing, prosecutors wrote that \u201cthe government has concluded that defendants Embly and Mendoza received an unfair trial,\u201d adding that the government \u201cerroneously induced\u201d the court to exclude evidence of the victim\u2019s drug use and cause of death during trial.<\/p>\n
Nava\u2019s sister, Betsy Nava-Flores, said the family learned about the move just days before it happened on a Zoom call with the lead prosecutor.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe basically told us, \u2018Hey, this is going to happen, and I\u2019m not opposed to it,\u2019\u201d Nava-Flores said. \u201cThat was the first time she spoke to us, and I just got a sick feeling. I said we\u2019re alone. There\u2019s nobody going to speak for my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family hired attorney Israel Ch\u00e1vez, who filed a motion to enforce their rights under the federal Crime Victims\u2019 Rights Act, arguing the government failed to meaningfully consult the family before making its decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has made a lot of decisions \u2014 unprecedented decisions \u2014 decisions that prosecutors in the office have said they\u2019ve never done in the history of their career \u2014 without meaningfully conferring with the Nava family,\u201d Ch\u00e1vez said.<\/p>\n
The lead prosecutor on the case, assistant U.S. attorney Maria Armijo, told the family she had never filed a motion to dismiss after a conviction in her 22 years with the office, according to Nava-Flores.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland has not yet ruled on the dismissal. In response to the family\u2019s motion, she appointed John Anderson \u2014 a former U.S. attorney for the District of New Mexico originally named by President Donald Trump \u2014 to argue against the dismissal in court.<\/p>\n
Ch\u00e1vez called the appointment significant.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did she appoint counsel, she appointed the former United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico to brief this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt appears to me the judge wants the full story on the record before she makes a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ch\u00e1vez also warned of broader consequences if the officers ultimately face no prison time.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only do I think there\u2019s a chance they won\u2019t face prison time,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I think there\u2019s a chance they could go back to being officers in New Mexico or somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nava family previously reached a $5 million wrongful death settlement tied to the case. Nava-Flores said the fight was never about money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is much bigger than us,\u201d she said. \u201cNobody has seen a verdict completely dismissed \u2014 never after conviction and verdict. If this can happen to Hector, it\u2019s happening more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n
KSAT reached out to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Las Cruces for comment. A spokesperson responded via email, pointing to the office\u2019s court filings as its official statement and declining further comment.<\/p>\n
A ruling from Strickland has not been scheduled.<\/p>\n
Read also: <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio family is demanding answers after federal prosecutors moved to throw out the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[815,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-409373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-courts","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}