Jason May was found not guilty on all five charges late Friday afternoon.

The jury began deliberations into the innocence or guilt of Jason May on five charges of felony filing a false/forged instrument following closing arguments Friday afternoon.

May testified Friday morning prior to the defense resting its case. During closing arguments, prosecutor Beau Mayes went over some of the jury instructions along with a brief summary on each charge. The charges stem from a seizure case involving funds found in a vehicle driven by Jorge Flores, who May represented.

Defense attorney Dan Pond and prosecutor Jacobi Whatley each followed with their closing arguments. Pond said throughout the case, the state had a habit of seeing what it wants to see and how it wants to see it. He told the jury the case came down to credibility, reminding them about inconsistencies in earlier testimony. He said that mistakes happen and while May had been duped, why was he the only one charged?

Pond also highlighted the 30th bundle of money that had been found three years after the seizure and reminded the jury it has been mentioned in interrogatory in 2019. He said it proved that May had been representing Flores.

Whatley spent little time responding to Pond’s issue with credibility and said what a tangled web we weave when we try to deceive. She said the defense could not have it both ways in arguing about the 30th bundle while being $15,000 off on the amount of funds that had been seized.

She said the attacks on the testimony of Craig Ladd, Melissa Handke and Eric Grisham were a diversion from the charges against May. Pond and Whatley clashed on the testimony of Alisha Flores, who was reported to be Flores’ stepdaughter and Maria Martinez, who testified that she was Flores’ daughter and that he had no stepdaughter.

She made additional arguments regarding the correspondence with Flores, who was alleged to be in Mexico yet receiving his mail in Austin, Texas, and how he got her number.

Whatley told the jury that mistakes are okay, but the difference was that May acted purposefully.

May took the stand on the final morning of the trial and shared with the jury the events that had taken place, starting with the first phone call he had received from a woman who identified herself as Alisha Flores, trying to find out where her father was. He received another a few days later from Flores again and May said Jorge Flores was also on the phone.

May testified he had looked up the forfeiture case that had been filed by the state and it interested him because it was unusual that there was not a criminal case that had been attached to it.

There had been a Supreme Court ruling that also generated interest in the case. May agreed to represent Flores on the forfeiture and traffic stop case and the agreement reached with Flores was that he would take the case on a contingency fee.

Testimony included details associated with the filings and the timeline of the case. May said he did not expect to win the case at the district level because the odds were stacked against him but felt that he would have better results.

May said representing Flores was complicated due to the fact he was an illegal alien, and he was working to represent his client’s interest without subjecting him to arrest. Settlements were discussed but he never got close to an agreement with Craig Ladd, who was the district attorney at that time. There were eight to 12 conversations with Alisha and Jorge Flores from 2019 to early 2020. After that, communication was solely through mail. May testified that he had requested an updated phone number but never received one.

There was one communication from an individual saying he represented Jorge Flores, who wanted a settlement because Alisha Flores’ home was being foreclosed on, but an agreement was not reached.

In 2022, May said he had almost forgotten about the case but a filing for a deposition led to a renewal of the search. He testified that he had found an obituary for a Jorge Flores dated April 20, 2022. He testified it matched up with information that he had been provided with what he knew about Jorge, including the listing of a daughter named Alisha.

While the death was listed in Brownsville, May said that he had remembered that APD Corporal Eric Grisham had said that Flores vehicle had been traced back to Mercedes, Texas, which is near Brownsville. May said he requested a death certificate from Texas but could not access it because he was not among those entitled to receive it such as a family member. Texas did provide a verification of death, which did not have as much information.

Pond asked questions about the probate filing, for which May had contacted for help in the filing. May also talked about unsuccessfully attempting to get more information on Flores’ death and the filings of the probate, suggestion of death and substitution of party.

Pond asked May about the conversation with Ladd in which the death of Flores had been discussed. May testified that he had not been able to get the death certificate and said he wanted Ladd to access it to clear things up.

“I wanted that and was hoping Mr. Ladd could get that,” he said.

May testified on Sept. 30, 2022, he received a call from Carter County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Rick Batt about needing to speak to him and finding out he was being investigated. He told the jury he found out in conversations with Batt that Jorge Flores had been found in Tyler, Texas, and that after receiving more information from bail bondsman Tanya Anthony, he began to feel that something was not right.

May contacted the Bar Association to determine what he could ethically provide to Batt and when he found out the notary stamp had been fraudulently used in mailed communications, including the interrogatory with Flores, May filed a note of fraud.

At that point, May said he felt that it was over only to find out that he was the target of a grand jury investigation in 2023.

May testified to the successful financial state of his business and said that he did not attempt to steal the money, nor did he need to steal it. He also told the jury that he had never filed anything that he knew to be false.

May said that he had always had Alisha Flores on the phone when talking with Jorge Flores while under cross-examination from McClain County Assistant District Attorney Jacobi Whatley. May testified that he had hired an investigator, David Estrada, while under investigation but had not hired an investigator to try and find Flores. He also testified that he had never sent a letter to any other family member other than Alisha Flores.

The defense got the case Thursday afternoon after District Attorney Melissa Handke and the District 21 Investigator.

Defense Attorney Matt Swain announced in his opening that May would testify along with APD Sgt. Jared Johnson and May’s Office Manager Lora Stevens. Swain said he liked to think of jury trials as possible puzzle pieces and at the end, it was the jury’s job to put the puzzle together. In regard to May’s testimony, Swain said that May would tell everything from his perspective and at what point, he began to realize that he had been duped.

Editor’s note – See the Tuesday edition of The Ardmoreite for a full wrap up of the trial.