APD chief testified in appeal hearing

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo testified Wednesday afternoon in Day 2 of former Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana's appeal hearing in his fight to regain his job after getting fired a second time.

Quintana's ex-fiancee testified during a hearing Tuesday surrounding his appeal of his second indefinite suspension from the force.

Editor's note: Due to KXAN Austin News policy to protect the identity of alleged domestic violence victims, the name of Quintana's ex-fiancee is excluded from this story.

The hearing before a third-party examiner is expected to last all week and surrounds a domestic violence investigation stemming from an incident in 2008 and another in 2009.

Quintana's ex-fiancee told Austin Assistant City Attorney Mike Cronig on Tuesday that she was embarassed and that she did not want to cause problems for either of them, adding that was the reason she did not report it to authorities.

Cronig questioned Quintana's ex-fiancee the during the arbitration hearing and tried to establish Quintana's pattern of abuse and intimidation against her.

Quintana was not present at the hearing Tuesday.

Acevedo indefinitely suspended Quintana the first time over a January 2010 DWI charge. -- which Quintana later pleaded guilty to during his January trial three weeks ago.

Quintana won the fight to get his job back following the May firing, and an arbitrator reduced his indefinite suspension to a 15-day suspension -- a ruling the department said it was disappointed with.

Just six days later, however, Quintana again lost his job for the second time on October 27. The grounds for that firing surrounded an October 2009 domestic incident in which police were called to the home of his then-fiancee after an argument.

Leander police arrested Quintana on Nov. 9 on four misdemeanor charges in connection with the alleged assaults in November 2008 and October 2009 on his then-fiancee, who is also an Austin police officer.

The charges -- regarding incidents that happened throughout a time span of less than a year -- include:

November 2008

• criminal mischief    
• assault - family violence

October 2009

• criminal trespass
• assault - family violence

After Quintana posted an $8,000 bond, part of his bail conditions in regard to that incident include he not drink any alcohol or own, have or buy any firearms. In addition to Quintana's arrest surrounding those incidents, there was also an emergency restraining order against him preventing any communicatio n or contact with his ex-fiancee.

Quintana is known for his role in the East Austin death of 18-year-old Nathaniel Sanders in an early morning incident in May 2009 -- though his first firing had little to do with that.