Family frustrated after waiting years for criminal trial

EL PASO, Texas -- A family in El Paso said they are frustrated after they have waited four years for the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting their young child.

The man accused is Ramon Avila. According to jail records, he was arrested in December of 2017 and charged with one count of indecency with a child.

The trial has been pushed back with continuances for years, and it has become more delayed because of the pandemic. The family of the child said they have gotten no answers from the district attorney's office as to why the case has been dragged on for so long with no trial.

The trial involving Gonzalez's relative is set for February 2022.

ABC-7 reached out to the district attorney's office for to ask why this case has dragged on for so long. In a statement, the district attorney's office said in part, "The defendant has a right to fully inspect and review the evidence that could be used in trial, and it appears that the defendant, through his attorney, has utilized procedural hearings between 2017-2020 to exercise those rights."

“I feel like we’ve been kept in the dark," David Gonzalez, a relative of the child, told ABC-7. "We’re not getting a valid response."

The pandemic has created a backlog of many cases in El Paso. A city court official said that 131,000 cases are currently awaiting a setting in municipal courts.