In Denton County Texas in 2012, Assistant District Attorney Forrest Beadle and his colleague Bill Schultz were tasked with the prosecution of Silvano Uriostegui, a man accused of the brutal stabbing of his estranged wife Maria Uriostegui, and her friend Pedro Melgar. Three years prior, on the night of May 7, Maria and Pedro arrived at Maria’s apartment following a date, and were then ambushed and brutally attacked by an assailant hiding in Maria’s bedroom. When police arrived, Maria was on the floor with a broken back and a total of nine stab wounds, some of which caused her silicone breast implants to burst inside her body. Melgar, who fled the scene of the attack, was later found with a number of knife wounds. As police investigation the scene of the crime, they found Maria’s bedroom window had been shattered. The assailant knew who he was looking for, and where to find her, and Maria was sure she had been attacked by her husband.
The case had many of the usual indicators of the extreme domestic violence seen all too often in America’s court rooms. A jealous estranged husband, a wife trying to move on, and a brutal attack; it truly appeared to be a crime of passion. Following a police investigation, Silvano Uriostegui was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a 2nd degree felony carrying a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
When the case went to trial, Silvano Uriostegui pled guilty, but then the case took a dramatic turn. After it was revealed that Beadle and Schultz had covered up evidence that may have helped Silvano Uriostegui’s defense, a blatant violation of the Supreme Court’s Brady v. Maryland ruling, and as a result, Judge Steve Burgess declared a mistrial and an attempted murderer was set free.
During an investigation into Beadle and Schultz’s misconduct, Beadle openly admitted that during trial, he was well aware that he was committing a Brady violation, but did it anyway. Because of this, both Beadle and Schultz were banned from Judge Burgess’ courtroom, and reassigned; Schultz to the DA’s Civil Division, and Beadle to the 16th District Court.
Now, only six years after one of Denton County’s greatest miscarriages of justice, Forrest Beadle is running for Judge in Denton County’s Criminal Court No. 3. Challenging veteran Judge David Garcia, while touting his prosecutorial record. Not surprisingly, Beadle’s campaign makes no mention of the case of Silvano Uriostegui, or the impact the case has had on his former wife Maria. If Forrest Beadle is too irresponsible to prosecute a man who would stab a woman six times, how can the people of Denton County, Texas trust him to preside over one of the county’s most important criminal courtrooms?
