Lamb County District Attorney Mark Yarbrough once wrote in a memo that Sal Abreo was a liar; but in court Thursday Yarbrough told a different story.

Yarbrough said he wrote that Abreo was "the worst Texas Ranger you will ever meet," and that "he lied to me to get me to file this case," because he was frustrated with Abreo and didn't really mean it.

The memo was penned two years after the impetus for Yarbrough's frustration.

He said Abreo, the lead investigator in the 1996 murder of Evangelina Cruz, told him one thing about a witness which conflicted with her statement; but because Abreo cleared it up in another report, he never really lied, Yarbrough testified.

Claims of Abreo's deceit and corruption have been a dominant issue in the civil rights suit filed by Alberto Sifuentes and Jesus Ramirez - the trial of which is close to entering its fourth week.

Another claim is prosecutors withheld crucial information from defense attorneys that could have aided in their advocacy of Sifuentes and Ramirez.

Sifuentes and Ramirez were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for the 1996 shooting death of Evangelina Cruz at the Littlefield Jolly Roger.

When an appeals court overturned their convictions and a Lamb County grand jury declined to indict, the pair of Mexican nationals sued the law enforcement and prosecutorial individuals and entities they say violated their constitutional rights to wrongly convict them.

The complaint filed by Sifuentes and Ramirez accuses Abreo, Yarbrough, Littlefield police officer Leonel Ponce and others of conspiring to wrongfully convict Sifuentes and Ramirez.

Jurors saw a video clip of Yarbrough giving an interview to a television reporter after Sifuentes and Ramirez were released.

He said he believed "the two defendants who were freed killed Angie Cruz."

The plaintiffs used the clip to support their defamation claim, but Yarbrough's attorney argued the statement was not defamatory because it was an opinion and not a statement of fact.

That opened to the door to questions about the Court of Criminal Appeals decision that sent the cases against Sifuentes and Ramirez back to the trial court.

The court vacated the convictions based on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim and in fact, rejected the innocence claim, jurors heard.

Yarbrough said he gave his opinion to the news media in response to public statements from Sifuentes and Ramirez' attorneys touting their clients' actual innocence.

Phil Wischkaemper, Ramirez' appointed attorney during the original criminal trial, testified after Yarbrough and was expected to retake the stand today.

He said he never received evidence and information Abreo had - specifically a comparison of shoes taken from Sifuentes and Ramirez to a shoe print at the crime scene. They didn't match.

"It would have been a centerpiece of my cross examination of Sal Abreo," Wischkaemper said.

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