A Denton County jury found a former Lewisville police officer guilty on Thursday of stalking a woman he met while on duty in 2024.
In order to find Filemon Perez, 34, guilty of stalking as indicted, the jury had to find that Perez harassed the woman on two or more occasions.
According to trial evidence, Perez visited the woman’s apartment complex on 83 occasions while on duty over a six-month period.
Except for one occasion, a then-Lewisville detective found, Perez had no legitimate reason to be on the complex property and neglected his work duties to stalk her.
His interactions with the woman, the jury found, reasonably caused her to fear bodily injury or death, or “feel harassed, terrified, intimidated, annoyed, alarmed, abused, tormented, embarrassed, or offended.”
Perez requested that 362nd District Court Judge Bruce McFarling assess his punishment instead of the jury. That will likely occur Friday.
The evidence
Perez first met the woman named in the indictment, whom the Denton Record-Chronicle will refer to as K.M., in late April 2024, during a call for service.
At the time, K.M. lived at the Somerset Apartments at 256 E. Corporate Drive in Lewisville.
K.M. called 911 to report a domestic disturbance at the complex involving her ex-boyfriend.
Lewisville officers responded to the apartment complex and ultimately arrested the ex-boyfriend for burglary of a habitation, which he was later convicted of.
One of those officers was Perez. K.M. testified she remembers Perez remarking to her that day, “You really know how to pick ‘em.”
In May 2024, K.M. saw on Ring doorbell camera footage that Perez had come to her door, but she hadn’t realized it until reviewing the footage later.
She testified she initially assumed he was there with good intentions: To check on her, follow up on her case or offer her resources.
In July 2024, she said, he came by her apartment again. This time, she said, she answered and spoke with him at her door.
K.M. testified that he asked her a lot of personal questions, including if she was still talking to her ex. K.M. also said she felt like he kept peering around her into her apartment.
She started texting her friends and family about the interactions to see if this “uneasy” feeling was in her head.
Throughout the summer, K.M. testified, she would start seeing a patrol car in her apartment complex at least once or twice a week. It was always near where she parked, she said.
K.M. told the jury she started parking further away from her apartment to avoid the patrol vehicle.
Around 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2024, K.M. testified, she was taking her dog out to the bathroom and saw Perez. She said she quickly ran back to her apartment to get away from him.
At this point, K.M. testified, she could no longer think of any good intentions an officer would have checking up on a single mother at such a late hour.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 28, 2024, K.M. saw the Lewisville police car in the parking lot again. She had her young daughter in the car with her, and contemplated how she could quickly get her daughter out of the car and up the stairs into the apartment.
She started recording on her phone and put her phone in her purse.
As she stepped out of her vehicle, K.M. testified, Perez was there. “Oh, you scared me,” she tells Perez on the recording.
He makes small talk, asks again about her ex-boyfriend, and the conversation wraps up quickly. K.M. was friendly to him, she testified, because she was afraid of what he might say or do.
K.M. testified Perez seemed surprised she had her daughter with her, and his demeanor changed when he noticed the toddler.
In hindsight, K.M. testified, she is glad her daughter was there. She testified that she worries the interaction could have ended differently if she had been alone.
On Nov. 5, 2024, K.M. testified, her neighbor told her he’d seen Perez at the complex and the officer asked the neighbor about her.
Her sister told the jury K.M. was not the type to dwell on things. However, her sister said, this situation grew to dominate K.M.’s thoughts and all of the sisters’ conversations for months.
Defense attorney Bruce Isaacks told the jury they might not like all of Perez’s choices. But, Isaacks argued, none of Perez’s actions gave K.M. reason to believe he would cause her injury or death, as the indictment suggests.
Rather, Isaacks characterized K.M.’s fears to the jury as those of a hyper-vigilant woman, jumping to conclusions because she had experienced abuse from her ex.
For the jury to find Perez guilty of stalking, they also had to believe K.M. was reasonable for fearing Perez would hurt her.
To counter Isaack’s characterization, prosecutor Dustin Gossage argued he should be allowed to reveal to the jury that Perez was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman while he was on duty in November 2024.
The guilt-innocence phase of a trial often limits prosecutors from introducing evidence from extraneous cases.
The sexual assault case, Gossage argued, proves that K.M.’s fear of Perez was reasonable.
It was news reports of Perez’s arrest that prompted K.M. to finally report Perez, Gossage said.
Judge Bruce McFarling ruled in favor of Gossage. The jury heard that Perez was accused, but heard very little about the case itself.
When K.M. found out that Perez allegedly sexually assaulted a young woman who was alone in an apartment complex parking lot late at night, K.M. testified, it validated all her fears.
Perez’s stalking of K.M. had stopped by the point she reported it, as he had resigned and been arrested in early December 2024. Upon K.M.’s report, now-retired Lewisville Detective Scott Kelly started reviewing GPS data from Perez’s patrol vehicles.
Kelly testified he was able to connect every instance K.M. claimed Perez was at the Somerset Apartment Complex with the GPS data.
Kelly testified that he found Perez visited the Somerset Apartments on 83 occasions over a six-month period after Perez met K.M. on April 19, 2024.
Perez went to the complex nearly every day that he was on duty after that date, Kelly said, excluding days he was issued training sessions.
For comparison, Perez had only visited the complex on 14 occasions in the seven months from the time he completed training to when he met K.M.
Isaacks characterized his client’s frequent visits to the Somerset Apartments as not stalking, but rather a proactive officer’s attempts to be visible in a high-crime area to deter crime.
The Somerset Apartments are indeed in a high-crime area, Kelly and other officers testified.
When Perez visited the complex during the stalking period, Kelly testified, GPS data showed he only drove around the north half of the apartment closest to K.M.’s apartment.
The only date he drove to the southern half, Kelly testified, was also the only date he was there for a legitimate call for service.
However, Kelly said, if Perez was only there to patrol — and not for the express reason of stalking K.M. — Kelly would expect Perez to patrol the whole property.
Kelly testified he would also expect Perez to have done a lot more work while he was there.
There was zero documentation that Perez made any search indexes on his in-vehicle computer while there, Kelly testified.
There was no evidence that Perez made any arrests or detainments while there, Kelly testified.
“That’s kind of lazy,” Kelly told the jury.
The Somerset Apartments were not in Perez’s assigned patrol area, Kelly testified.
Sure, Kelly testified, a police officer is not strictly confined to their assigned beat. But Perez was visiting this area, Kelly testified, to the extent that he was neglecting his own beat.
Perez’s laziness, as Kelly described, was not the only issue with his work performance.
He violated department policies on multiple occasions and received two complaints from female citizens for his interactions with them.
His former supervisor, Capt. Jonathan Castro, testified that Perez was verbally cautioned by a different supervisor in February 2024 — before the stalking began — about such interactions.
A woman had complained that Perez asked her personal questions that made her uncomfortable, according to Castro.
Castro testified that he received a second, similar complaint from a different woman in September 2024 — during the stalking.
The woman complained, Castro told the jury, that as she was pulling into a parking spot, Perez parked his patrol vehicle perpendicularly behind her, blocking her vehicle in.
Castro said she recounted that Perez approached her and started asking her questions about her dating life that made her uncomfortable.
Castro told the jury that Perez did not follow the proper procedures of activating his body camera and documenting the traffic stop.
Perez went out of his way, Gossage argued, to conceal his inappropriate behavior because he knew it was wrong.
Perez received a written reprimand and verbal counseling for the two incidents, Castro said.
That reprimand, Gossage argued, is evidence Perez knew or should have known that his conduct toward K.M. was inappropriate.
Perez used his position of authority and badge, Gossage said, to hunt for vulnerable women.
