On April 28, 2009, a 46-year-old man called police and reported that his boyfriend, 34-year-old Mikhail Timofeyev, had punched him. The man said that Timofeyev demanded money for drugs and when he refused, Timofeyev punched him.
On August 17, 2010, Timofeyev pled guilty in Bexar County Court at Law 7. He was sentenced to probation, but a month later, his probation was revoked and he was sentenced to 54 days in jail.
In 2020, Timofeyev’s attorney, Rose Zebell, asked the Bexar County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) to review the conviction. Timofeyev and his accuser had married in 2016 and his accuser said that he had sent letters to the court recanting his accusation. The letters had not been disclosed to the prosecution.
Timofeyev, a chef, was originally a citizen of Russia and had become a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. When he began seeking U.S. citizenship, he learned that the conviction would be a bar.
The CIU reinvestigated the case and the complainant again recanted his claim that Timofeyev had struck him. The CIU verified the existence of the recantation letters and the man repeated his recantation. Witnesses also verified that Timofeyev had never been violent or abusive.
On August 31, 2020, Matthew Howard, chief of the CIU, agreed to vacate the conviction based on the recantations and because there was no corroborating evidence that any assault ever occurred. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted that same day. On September 1, 2020, the prosecution filed a motion to dismiss. That motion was granted and entered by the Bexar County Clerk on March 12, 2021.
– Maurice Possley
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