| On June 24, 2020, police in Grand Prairie, Texas arrested 34-year-old Richard Jereidiah Escamilla on a charge of public intoxication. Officer Matthew Huber wrote a citation and mistakenly identified Escamilla as Richard Eliezar Escamilla, who was 24 years old.
Richard Jereidiah Escamilla lived in Forney, Texas. Richard Eliezar Escamilla lived in Lancaster, Texas. When Richard Jereidiah was booked and fingerprinted, he was correctly identified.
On June 25, 2020, Richard Jereidiah pled guilty to the public intoxication charge. He was ordered to pay a fine and released. When he did not pay the fine, a warrant was issued on December 14, 2020. Because the case had been charged under the name of Richard Eliezar, the warrant was in Richard Eliezar’s name.
The mistake resulted in Richard Eliezar becoming an “alias” for Richard Jereidiah.
The warrant was still outstanding on April 9, 2021, when Dallas police responded to a 911 call of a driver in a black pick-up truck “doing donuts” in the road. Police stopped the truck and arrested the driver – Richard Eliezar.
A records check revealed the warrant for failing to pay the public intoxication fine, and Richard Eliezar was placed under arrest for Richard Jereidiah’s public intoxication citation.
When taken into custody, police found suspected methamphetamine in his pocket. The drugs were sent to the Southwestern Institute for Forensic Science for analysis. Meanwhile, Richard Eliezar was released.
Five months later, on October 10, 2021, the lab issued a report confirming the drugs were methamphetamine. On October 25, 2021, a warrant was issued for Richard Eliezar on the meth charge.
Two weeks later, on November 7, 2021, Dallas police responded to a report of a suspicious person with a cut on his face. They found Richard Jereidiah with a wound on his eyebrow. When they conducted a records check, they discovered the warrant for Richard Eliezar on the meth charge. It listed Richard Jereidiah as an alias for Richard Eliezar. So, the officers arrested Richard Jereidiah on Richard Eliezar’s meth charge.
Attorney Bernard Nwaiwu was appointed to represent Richard Jereidiah, but when the case was not promptly referred to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, Richard Jereidiah was released. The case was ultimately indicted on June 29, 2022.
On December 1, 2022, Richard Jereidiah was arrested on a new drug charge. While he was in custody, he filed a pro se motion seeking to dismiss the 2022 drug charge. “I’m not the person named in the indictment,” he said. “Although we have the same name, he is ten years younger than me. Also, I have never been caught in a black Chevy truck doing donuts.”
Nothing was done. On January 24, 2023, Richard Jereidiah posted bond, and he was released.
On April 27, 2023, Richard Jereidiah was arrested once again on drug charges. At that point, he was facing three drug possession charges, one of which was the charge after methamphetamine was found in Richard Eliezar’s pocket.
On July 26, 2026, Richard Jereidiah pled guilty in Dallas County Circuit Court to the December 2022 drug arrest and to methamphetamine case. He was sentenced to three years in prison. The third case was dismissed by the prosecution.
Not long after, when the Texas Department of Corrections arrived at the Dallas County Jail to take Richard Jereidiah to a state penitentiary, the mix-up was discovered, and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) began investigating.
The CIU reviewed the police body camera footage in all three cases and quickly determined that Richard Eliezar was the correct suspect in the methamphetamine case involving the truck driver turning donuts.
Ultimately, the CIU gathered all of the records going back to the Grand Prairie arrest of Richard Jereidiah for public intoxication. Fingerprints of Richard Jereidiah and Richard Eliezar were compared, and the CIU concluded that Richard Jereidiah was innocent of one of the two cases he had pled guilty to.
Ultimately, Richard Jereidiah’s post-conviction attorney, Bruce Anton, filed a state law petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking to vacate the methamphetamine possession conviction.
On September 11, 2024, Criminal District Judge Tina Clinton recommended that writ be granted. Judge Clinton found that defense attorney Nwaiwu “unreasonably advised [Richard Jereidiah] to plead guilty without performing even a basic investigation to evaluate [Richard Jereidiah’s] veracity after [he] claimed he did not commit the offense.”
The judge noted that at a hearing on the writ, Nwaiwu testified that he had reviewed the videos, and although he was not entirely sure that the man on the body camera footage of the methamphetamine arrest was not Richard Jereidiah, he brought the video to the attention of the prosecutor in the case.
Judge Clinton said that the prosecutor had testified credibly that Nwaiwu had not said anything about the body camera footage, and that if Nwaiwu had done so, the footage would have been reviewed
“This Court finds Nwaiwu’s testimony that he reviewed the videos and pressed the claim of innocence not credible,” Judge Clinton declared.
Judge Clinton recommended that the writ be granted. On December 11, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the writ and vacated Richard Jereidiah’s methamphetamine conviction.
On December 23, 2024, the prosecution filed a motion to dismiss the case. Judge Clinton granted the motion that day. Subsequently, Richard Jereidiah was released on parole, having completed his prison time on the other drug conviction.
– Maurice Possley
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