Travis County prosecutors have dropped felony evidence-tampering charges against former Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody and former assistant county attorney Jason Nassour, the district attorney's office said July 1. The move follows a series of rulings that left prosecutors unable to introduce key evidence at trial. The dismissals close what had been one of the last remaining criminal avenues tied to the 2019 traffic stop that ended in the death of Javier Ambler.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza said, "Our hearts continue to break for the Ambler family," and that his office was disappointed to be prevented from presenting evidence to a Travis County jury, according to CBS Austin. Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick said his office "dedicated immense effort" to the prosecution and pointed to indictments returned by multiple grand juries as evidence of the case's strength, the report added.
How the Case Unfolded
The charges stem from a March 28, 2019, traffic stop and 22-minute pursuit in which Williamson County deputies, accompanied that night by a Live PD film crew, stunned Ambler multiple times as he told officers he could not breathe. The encounter, and the fact that the show's unaired footage never surfaced publicly, set off criminal investigations and intense scrutiny of the department's relationship with reality TV, as detailed by The Texas Tribune.
Appeals Fight That Closed the Case
A Travis County judge earlier ruled that key evidence prosecutors wanted jurors to see was inadmissible because it was preempted by federal law, triggering an appellate battle. A three-judge panel of the Third Court of Appeals briefly indicated the case should go back to the trial court, before the full appeals court said it lacked jurisdiction. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals then declined to review the dispute on May 14, a sequence that, per Justia, left prosecutors without a path forward.
Legal Note
The dismissals apply only to the tampering indictments against Chody and Nassour. Two former deputies who used Tasers on Ambler were acquitted by a Travis County jury in March 2024, and Williamson County previously approved a $5 million wrongful-death settlement with Ambler’s family in December 2021, AP News reports. With appellate options exhausted, prosecutors say the criminal chapter tied to the disputed footage is effectively closed even as civil and policy debates continue.
Those policy debates helped spur state action. Lawmakers pushed a measure, commonly referred to as "Javier Ambler's Law," to bar Texas law enforcement agencies from contracting with reality TV productions, a change covered by local outlets at the time. For now, the DA's office and the Ambler family's civil claims remain the main threads left from a case that reshaped how policing and television intersect in Texas.
