Manifest Injustice: The Story of Pablo Velez Jr.
Our justice system favors finality to truth, and the fact that some claims of wrongful conviction get less attention than others ensures that this injustice continues
By Lisa Brat Martinez
On the evening of July 14, 2004, and into the early morning hours of the next day, a woman named Claudia Beltran, who was at the Perfect Rack Pool Hall and Sports Bar in the Garden Oaks-Oak Forest neighborhood of Houston, Texas, made a phone call that would forever change the lives of Emerson Bojorquez and Pablo Velez Jr.
By the end of the night, Bojorquez, 17, would be dead, and soon after, Velez would be charged with murder.
Around closing time, Beltran called the father of her unborn child, Adrian Payan. Payan, 19, had been looking for several men he had previously been in a fight with, and she told him that at least one man who wanted to fight him, Jason Wooley, was at the bar. Payan returned with two friends, including Bojorquez, to confront Wooley. But what Payan did not know was this was not going to be a fistfight. It was a gunfight.
As Payan and a second friend, Esteban Rodriguez, approached the pool hall, Bojorquez stayed in the car. Within seconds, Wooley pulled out a gun and fired a shot into the ground. Pandemonium broke out, according to witnesses and court filings, as volleys of shots came toward Bojorquez and Rodriguez from a nearby parking lot.
It was an ambush.
Beltran told police she saw a man in a blue shirt with a long gun standing near a gold Cadillac emerge from a parking lot to chase Payan, who was shot in the back twice before escaping to safety by running across a street, jumping a fence and hiding in a school bus facility. Soon, three men, including Wooley, were seen entering the Cadillac, which tore out of the parking lot.
Beltran and her friend would later get Payan to first responders and find Bojorquez mortally wounded on a sidewalk in front of a nearby tattoo shop. Rodriquez was uninjured.
What happened in between those two moments – when Payan ran, and Bojorquez was found –became key evidence in the case. Beltran and her friend, Nancy Almanza, jumped into Almanza’s car, chased the Cadillac, and used lipstick to write down its license plate on a Bible in the car.
The police traced the license plate to Velez.
It might seem like an open-and-shut case, but it was anything but.
My Journey to Advocacy for Pablo Velez Jr.
I am an actor and a fashion designer. My work has given me a voice and a platform to help others. I have advocated for animals, fought against human trafficking and now have taken on Velez’s case. I do not do it for attention; most of my work is done quietly. I became involved in his case in July 2020 when I found his story online. At the time, I knew the current Harris County District Attorney, whose office prosecuted the case. I felt I could help by sharing Velez’s story with her.
I believe that justice for murder victims involves healing for their families, and an important part of that is the right person being convicted of the crime.
Eventually, I would hear more about the case through his legal team, his mother, and eventually him. It became clear to me that Velez’s case is an acute example of how the justice system can fail a person despite straightforward evidence of their innocence.
I have encountered immense challenges in advocating for his release in the years since. It has been an uphill battle, from a lack of interest from officials and the media to overwhelming resistance to revisiting flawed decisions. Some have brought attention to the case, such as journalist Marlene Guzman of Univision, Bob Ruff of the Truth & Justice podcast and Alice LaCour and Brett Talley of The Prosecutors podcast. However, support for Velez seems negligible compared to others whose claims of innocence are loudly promoted.
It baffles me why few are willing to speak up for victims of systemic failures. While many people speak of justice for victims, when the person convicted of a crime is a victim of false accusations, we often turn a blind eye. It can feel too complicated to sort out, but that is no reason to not do our best to try.
And this case is an example of how we, as a society, need to reform the criminal justice system, particularly how we look at strong claims of innocence.
A Vicious Murder and a Flawed Investigation
Days before the shooting, Payan had been in a fight with several men and had vowed revenge. When Payan returned to confront Wooley, Payan showed up with two friends, Bojorquez, the youngest, was supposed to stay in the car. But Bojorquez left the car at some point. Beltran and her friend, Nancy Almanza, sat with Bojorquez before the ambulance arrived, with Almanza holding him as he begged not to die. He did not make it to hospital.
The two strong clues police had were witness identifications of Wooley and the license plate written down by Beltran and Almanza that the police tied to Velez. But, despite this, there was compelling evidence that Velez was not a shooter early in the investigation. Much of that evidence, however, was withheld until after the trial. Other witnesses were not, for whatever reason, called by Velez’s defense attorney, who was dying of cancer at the time and passed away soon after the trial. His records were destroyed before Velez’s appeals were heard.
The evidence showed, however, that on the night of July 14, Velez and a trucking trainee were returning from a trip when they encountered mechanical problems in Weatherford, Texas. After switching their load with another truck, Velez dropped the trainee off in a northern Houston suburb at about 12:30 a.m. on July 15. He says he drove his truck home, where he was seen by his brothers, who were on the Internet until 1:30 a.m., creating a witness and digital timeline. Velez says he showered, dressed, ate cereal and then drove the truck to his girlfriend’s house in a western Houston neighborhood. He says he did not return home until about 5:15 a.m.
After getting home, Velez says he received a strange call from a friend, Ronald Strandberg III. Velez had given Standberg his gold Cadillac in return for taking over the payments on it. Strandberg asked Velez to report the car stolen. Several hours later, Strandberg called again and said not to worry.
Meanwhile, as the police were circling Velez as a suspect, Beltran was shown a photo array with a picture of Velez. She said the shooter in the blue shirt looked like him but “lighter.” The “but” was left out of the police report and the trial. Velez’s appellate lawyers would eventually discover that Beltran identified someone between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 8 inches who was between 170 pounds and 190 pounds. Velez weighed 230 pounds and was 6 foot 1 inch tall.
Two Houston Police detectives, Bob King and Ray Swainson, spoke to an informant who identified Wooley, Stranberg and Richard Cisneros Jr. as the shooters. The informant, Mario Sosa, also said Stranberg had a .45-caliber handgun, and Cisneros had a .223-caliber assault rifle. Cisneros also better fits the description of the shooter in the blue shirt in terms of both weight and height. The gun descriptions matched the evidence at the scene.
Despite evidence pointing to Cisneros, Strandberg and Wooley, Velez and Wooley were charged.
A Deeply Flawed Trial
At trial, Beltran would later say that she tried to warn the prosecutor that Velez was not the shooter. She says the prosecutor told her to stick to what was in the police report.
Ken McClean, Velez’s defense attorney, was in the late stages of battling cancer and died shortly after the trial. What is known is that he called one businessperson who testified that Strandberg had brought the Cadillac in to have a stereo installed a week before the shooting. Another witness testified that he went with Velez to pick up the Cadillac from Strandberg’s house a few weeks after the shooting. McClean also subpoenaed a neighbor who had seen Velez’s truck in front of his house at the time of the shooting and a person who had seen the Cadillac parked at Strandberg’s house in the days before and after the shooting. But neither, for unknown reasons, took the stand. The judge limited McClean’s ability to question witnesses about Cisneros and Strandberg, even though the prosecutor said in her opening statement she believed the two were also involved.
Prosecutors called Payan, who testified that he had seen Velez at the pool hall at 10 p.m., more than two hours before he arrived in Houston, a statement belied by the multiple witnesses who supported the fact that he was on the road at that time. Velez’s girlfriend was called, but she denied being with Velez that morning.
As a result, Velez was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Manifest Injustice
Appellate attorneys from the international law firm of Latham & Watkins, who took Velez’s case pro bono, would later find out that phone records contradicted Velez’s girlfriend’s story, that the exculpatory version of Beltran’s description was left out of the police report and the trial, and the information from the confidential informant was omitted.
You would think this would be enough to get a new trial, but it was not. Our justice system has to preserve resources and eventually come to resolutions. This is done by the idea of moving toward finality in each stage of the process. These are some of the reasons that certain issues not raised or objected to at trial are waived for appeals, that deference is given to the original judge in the case, and that it requires new evidence unless there is a substantive or material violation of a defendant’s Constitutional rights. When defense files are unavailable, it can be hard to tell whether information has been withheld by prosecutors. Even when it is, appellate judges will only overturn a conviction if the information is favorable to the accused and relevant enough to affect the trial outcome. We do not ask jurors what was relevant, so that can often be an arbitrary decision by judges who did not see the trial.
In affidavits, Payan admitted he had lied about seeing Velez and he had been afraid to identify Cisneros and Strandberg; Beltran came forward to say the man she saw in the blue shirt was Cisneros and not Velez; a witness from the parking lots said Cisneros and Stranberg were the shooters and not Velez and another came forward to say Strandberg confessed that he had framed a man for murder using the person’s car. Another said that they saw Wooley and Stranberg with guns before the ambush. Wooley even wrote that Velez had not been there.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit convinced the Houston Police Department’s Cold Case Unit to reinvestigate the case. Stranberg, who was in prison, said he and Cisneros were at another bar that night. Cisneros refused to speak to the investigators.
Evidence was presented that one of the detectives, King, had not written down Beltran’s complete statement, that the confidential informant’s information was not in the file and that the other detective, who testified that Beltran’s identification of Velez “was “perfect, beautiful, positive” had not been in the room for it.
It, along with phone records showing the three likely shooters exchanged 60 phone calls before and after the trial, was not enough for the Texas Court of Appeals, a U.S. District Court Judge or the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
The options for hope for Velez have dwindled down to the Texas Parole Board, which has already denied his application twice (a third hearing is scheduled for April).
Our Journey Toward Justice
Throughout my advocacy journey, I have worked on several cases but never encountered the level of resistance and lack of media attention I have faced to get Velez’s case heard. This has, however, only fueled my determination to continue assisting him and others who have been wrongfully convicted. Justice based on evidence should prevail.
One disheartening aspect of this journey has been the lack of support from even Latino-based organizations. Too many remain silent unless they lead the effort or receive the spotlight.
One positive about this case is that the family of the victim has attended hearings, and one member said while coming out of the courtroom, “Well, looks like we sent an innocent man to prison.”
Advocacy is not about getting credit or who stands in front of the cameras. Being an advocate often involves the hard, unglamorous work of sending emails, attending meetings, and organizing events. It requires resilience without credit and the motivation to simply do it because it’s the right thing. I have restless nights, and when I take on a case, it consumes me—I eat, sleep, and breathe the details because it is an injustice to the convict and to the victims’ families. I do this because we need a justice system that works for everyone. Socioeconomic status, appearance, or ethnicity should never outweigh the facts. The truth should always come to light, no matter how inconvenient it may be for the system – for the victims, for their families and for the wrongfully convicted.
It is time to shine that light.
Lisa Brat Marteniz is a fashion designer, actor and an advocate for Pablo Velez Jr. The Justice for Pablo Velez Jr. Facebook group can be found here. More information about efforts related to the case can be found here.