After a judge ruled in April 2021 that there was insufficient evidence to present his murder charges to a grand jury, former Dallas Police Officer Bryan Riser is now suing the detective who investigated the case.
Riser was arrested on March 4, 2021, on two counts of capital murder after police said he ordered the 2017 killing of 30-year-old Lisa Saenz and 60-year-old Albert Douglas.
According to The Dallas Morning News, boaters discovered Saenz’s body in the Trinity River on March 10, 2021. Six months after the discovery, police arrested Emmanuel Kilpatrick, Kevin Kidd, and Jermon Simmons on capital murder charges in connection to the 30-year-old’s murder.
Kidd later admitted to investigators that he met Simmons and Kilpatrick at the river bottom, where Kilpatrick shot Saenz.
Now serving a life sentence, Kilpatrick told Esteban Montenegro, the leading detective, that former officer Bryan Riser had ordered him to kill Saenz and Douglas, whose body was never recovered.
Riser was arrested and charged with Saenz and Douglas’ murders following Kilpatrick’s accusation.
However, Riser was released from jail in April 2021 after Criminal Court Judge Audrey Moorehead ruled in a hearing that police did not have enough evidence to bring the murder case before a grand jury.
During the hearing, Montenegro admitted under oath that he made errors with some information on Riser’s arrest warrant affidavit.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Montenegro had written in Riser’s arrest warrant affidavit that cellphone data placed Riser in or near the area where the two murders occurred.
The detective would later testify during the hearing that the data did not place the former Dallas officer near the scenes and that he erroneously wrote that it did.
Riser is now suing Montenegro in federal court in Dallas on claims that the detective violated his civil rights and falsely arrested and jailed him.
Riser claimed that the affidavit Montenegro had written had various misrepresentations and omissions and was based on uncorroborated statements from a source the detective knew was unreliable.
According to the lawsuit, fellow police told Montenegro that Kilpatrick was known to call the Dallas PD, posing as an informant or bounty hunter to extract information.
The lawsuit also claimed that Kilpatrick’s accounts of the event and circumstances were different from Kidd’s.
“Montenegro chose to completely ignore Kidd’s version of events because it did not fit with his preferred narrative in which Riser arranged the killing,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also claimed that the affidavit did not disclose that Kilpatrick had made a deal for “life in prison with the possibility of parole” in exchange for his testimony against former officer Bryan Riser.
Montenegro has not given any statements on Riser’s lawsuit. However, the detective is now under investigation for how he handled the case.
According to court records, Dallas police filed three cases against Montenegro in March 2022 to a grand jury to decide whether he should face charges.
Messina Madson, Montenegro’s attorney, said her client will be “cleared of all charges.”
Montenegro was placed on administrative leave following the charges.