On April 23, 2017, Amanda Sanchez called the police in San Antonio, Texas, and said that her two children, A.S. and A.H.S., had told her that they had been sexually abused by 34-year-old Adam Sanchez, who was their father and her ex-husband.
At the time, Sanchez was living with her then-boyfriend, T.G. A.S., a girl, was 6 years old. Her brother, A.H.S., was 5 years old.
The San Antonio Police Department opened an investigation. Tammy Smiley, an investigator with Bexar County’s Child Protective Services, interviewed the children on May 9, 2017. The boy said that Sanchez forced him to perform sex acts with his sister. The girl said that Sanchez sexually assaulted her and forced her to perform sex acts with her brother. She also said that some of these events took place at the home of Sanchez’s friend, Avian Sanchez, where Adam Sanchez sometimes stayed.
Sanchez was arrested on May 11, 2017, and later indicted on six counts of child sexual assault. He was unable to make bail and remained in the Bexar County Jail.
An officer interviewed Sanchez after his arrest. According to his report: “While speaking to the defendant, I observed his emotions to be odd. The defendant was not surprised, angry, confused, and had little to no emotion of any kind when told about the allegations.”
–After Sanchez’s arrest, the children expanded their account of the abuse. Both A.S. and A.H.S. said on June 29, 2017, that Avian Sanchez had also sexually abused them.
The police interviewed Avian Sanchez. He denied touching or abusing the children. In July 2017, A.S. and A.H.S. said their accusations against Avian Sanchez had been false. A.H.S. told a forensic interviewer that he didn’t know why he made the accusation. A.S. said she accused Avian because she was worried that her father would get hurt in jail and she wanted him to have a friend with him.
After more than a year in jail, Sanchez grew frustrated with the lack of progress on his case. He asked a person working in the jail’s law library what his court-appointed attorney was supposed to be doing and whether he could fire that person and get a new attorney. In his query, Sanchez couldn’t remember the name of his attorney.
An inmate working in the law library responded and said that Sanchez’s attorney was Virginia Maurer, that she was an experienced attorney, and that Sanchez should ask her what was going on in his case.
On August 24, 2018, Sanchez wrote to Maurer, asking for an update on his case and her strategy to defend him. The letter was written by Mike Clements, a minister who knew Sanchez’s mother. (Sanchez was functionally illiterate, according to Clements.) Maurer wrote back on August 31, and said the case would take a while to go to trial. She said that the court had appointed an investigator to assist her. “Once I have had the opportunity to meet with him and go over your case with him, he will be in contact with you,” she wrote. (The reason Maurer had not yet met with the investigator was because the court had only approved the funds for an investigator on August 31.)
On April 11, 2019, Sanchez entered no contest pleas to three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in Bexar County District Court. Two of the counts were against A.H.S., and one was against A.S. He was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In late 2020, Amanda Sanchez contacted Adam Sanchez and said that A.S. and A.H.S. had recanted their accusations. According to Amanda, A.S. said the false accusations were a result of T.G.’s abuse towards the children.
A.S. said in an affidavit that T.G. physically and mentally abused her and her brother, and that they were “scared of him.” A.S. said that she and her brother had touched each other’s genitals one time, but T.G. believed that they were constantly doing it. One day, she said, T.G. exploded and accused Sanchez of teaching the children this behavior. T.G. kept yelling, she said, until her brother falsely agreed that their father was to blame. A.S. said she knew about sex and sex crimes from seeing a video on someone’s cell phone and from watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit with her mom.
A.H.S. said in his affidavit: “I told a lie about my dad because my mom’s ex-boyfriend [T.G.] was mad at me and my sister and [T.G.] was always hitting us and hurting us. I said that my dad did things to me because that is what [T.G.] wanted me to say and I just did not want to be in trouble. I was scared of [T.G] and how mean he was to us when my mom was at work and we were at home with him.”
In December 2020, Sanchez submitted an intake form to the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) in the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office. The CIU said it was interested in examining Sanchez’s claims.
A year later, on December 15, 2021, Sanchez filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus. He was now represented by Dayna Jones.
The motion said Sanchez was entitled to a new trial on two grounds. First, the recantations of the two children, who were now 9 and 11 years old, showed that he was innocent of the crimes for which he pled guilty.
Second, the motion said Maurer provided ineffective representation, failing to actively investigate Sanchez’s case and coercing him into entering a guilty plea. (Maurer died in September 2020.)
James McKay, the investigator, said in an affidavit that Maurer wouldn’t meet with him to discuss the case and what needed investigating. He made a few inquiries but didn’t know how to proceed. He said he worked so little on the case that he didn’t bill the county.
The motion noted that the children’s accounts of the abuse changed during the course of the investigation, particularly with regards to Avian Sanchez.
“A simple review of the discovery establishes that there was a possible defense in this matter considering the children already admitted they had lied about their dad’s friend sexually assaulting them and there was nothing corroborating their allegations,” the motion said.
Sanchez said in an affidavit that Maurer only visited him three times and pressured him to take the plea deal. “She had been telling me that everything was looking good, but as things got closer to trial she began telling me that things were not good for me and that she worked really hard to get the deal she got and that I needed to take it,” he said.
“Even though I knew I was innocent, I was scared, and I also did not want my children to have to go through a trial,” he said.
Sanchez said he could not read or write very well and that he relied on Maurer to explain things to him. “I don’t believe that I truly understood all of the allegations against me or the legal aspects of my case.”
At an evidentiary hearing in 2022, the children testified about their false accusations and their recantations. A judge in Bexar County then recommended to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Sanchez’s writ application be granted. Sanchez was released from prison on October 14, 2022.
The appellate court granted the writ on June 19, 2024. The state dismissed the charges on July 31, 2024.
– Janet Arroyo, Kaylee Contreras-Garcia, Fox Kasprzak, Savannah Labarda, and Diana Palomares
Posting Date: 07-01-2025
Last Update Date: 07-01-2025
