The Ajay Dev Saga: Sixteen Years of Injustice, Advocacy, and Vindication

On a Friday morning in May 2025, nearly sixteen years after he was convicted and sentenced to 378 years in prison, Ajay Dev stood on the cusp of freedom. In a Yolo County courtroom, Judge Janene Beronio delivered a long-awaited ruling: Dev’s conviction had been overturned.

The court found that Dev’s original trial had been tainted by legal errors, the mishandling of critical evidence, and newly surfaced facts that seriously undermined the credibility of his accuser.

For Dev, his family, and a growing community of supporters, the ruling was a vindication of years of protest, advocacy, and legal struggle. But for California’s justice system, it was a sobering reminder of just how hard it is to undo a wrongful conviction.

This is the story of the Ajay Dev case—a 16-year odyssey of injustice, courtroom battles, media scrutiny, and grassroots resilience that would ultimately upend one of Yolo County’s most controversial prosecutions.

When Patty Pursell asked me to come out to the Dev’s home in Roseville, I was skeptical.  She later told me she was googling for reporters and found my work on the case of the farmer who was facing decades in prison for allowing his goats to run loose.

I had been running the Vanguard for just over three years at that point.  While I had some limited experience in Yolo County—Gang Injunction, Halema Buzayan, the 2006 Yolo County DA Election, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Little did I realize that the people that I met that day—Peggy Dev, Patty Pursell, Jack Easley and his wife Mary were there among others.  I was skeptical when they said it was a wrongful conviction—I did not know but later would learn about wrongful convictions.

What I was sure about was the stunning moment in Yolo County Court in 2009 when Judge Timothy Fall sentenced Ajay Dev to 378 years and four months.  (The four months to me was always insult to injury).

I didn’t realize as I walked out of the court that day that I would spend 16 years working on this case, become intimately familiar with Ajay Dev and his family, and it would launch the Vanguard first into court watch journalism and then prison journalism.

The Trial: A Tapestry of Errors and Omissions

Ajay Dev’s 2009 trial in Yolo County was a harrowing eight-week ordeal that culminated in a 378-year prison sentence. The verdict shocked many in the courtroom—not just because of its severity, but because of how it was reached. A closer examination of the record reveals a cascade of errors: mistranslations, exclusion of critical exculpatory evidence, suppression of impeachment material, and prosecutorial overreach.

The Pretext Call: A Translation Catastrophe

Central to the prosecution’s case was a “pretext” phone call made by the accuser, Sapna Dev, to Ajay Dev on February 4, 2004. The call was partly in English and partly in Nepali. Rather than relying solely on a court-certified translator, the court allowed Sapna herself to provide her own translation of what was said during the call—a stunning decision given that she was also the complaining witness.

Prosecutors submitted a transcript from the FBI’s Language Services Division, riddled with commentary and speculation rather than objective translation. As the defense noted in its objections, the FBI transcript frequently editorialized: “AD probably is crying,” “AD’s tone of voice changes to bold,” and “AD talks like a loving and caring person.” None of these were actual Nepali phrases—they were interpretive glosses layered on top of raw audio, which is explicitly discouraged in court-certified translation practice.

Later, during trial proceedings, Professor Shakti Aryal submitted an alternate translation. Aryal testified that Sapna’s translation was demonstrably inaccurate and that Ajay Dev never confessed to any sexual conduct. For instance, a critical phrase Sapna claimed meant “I had sex with you” was, in Aryal’s analysis, actually a vague statement about her coming to him when she was 18—a statement that didn’t imply sexual contact at all. “There was no term equivalent to ‘sex’ used,” Aryal said bluntly. The phrase was distorted to serve the prosecution’s narrative.

Excluding the Truth: Nepalese Conviction Records

Another key moment came when the defense sought to introduce certified Nepalese court documents showing that Sapna had previously been convicted of passport fraud and perjury. These were crucial pieces of evidence—showing not only motive (she had secured U.S. immigration benefits) but also a pattern of dishonesty. Judge Timothy Fall, however, excluded the documents over what he termed “authentication issues,” despite affidavits and declarations from Nepalese officials attesting to their legitimacy.

While excluding this concrete court ruling, Judge Fall permitted the prosecution to characterize Nepal’s judicial system as backward and untrustworthy. Deputy DA Steven Mount described Nepal as a “communist country in civil war,” and suggested Dev’s family had manipulated that system—despite no evidence to support such a claim. This framing allowed the jury to disregard any consideration of the accuser’s prior conviction and painted Dev’s defense as deceitful.

Misuse of Fresh Complaint Doctrine

The prosecution also relied on California’s “fresh complaint” doctrine to admit hearsay statements from third-party witnesses—who claimed Sapna had told them about the abuse. Under People v. Brown (1994), such statements are only admissible when they are truly contemporaneous and not offered to prove the truth of the allegation but merely to show consistency in behavior.

However, Sapna’s statements came years after the alleged abuse began. Defense counsel Michael Rothschild argued this undermined the doctrine’s application and amounted to impermissible bolstering. Nonetheless, Judge Fall allowed the testimony, giving the jury the impression that Sapna had consistently told the truth from the beginning, despite her timeline being riddled with contradictions.

Silencing the Defense: Limits on Cross-Examination

Throughout the trial, Rothschild’s efforts to impeach Sapna’s credibility were met with repeated objections, many of which were sustained. California Evidence Code §780 allows for cross-examination of a witness’s motives, biases, and inconsistent behavior. But Judge Fall restricted inquiry into key areas: Sapna’s immigration history, her inconsistent statements about her age, and prior allegations she had made against others. The defense attempted to introduce letters and records showing discrepancies in her stated birthdate, but the court denied the jury access to these documents.

Prosecutorial Misconduct in Closing

The most incendiary moment may have come during Mount’s closing arguments. According to post-trial motions, Mount told the jury that Dev had “confessed” during another proceeding—an assertion not supported by the record. No such admission existed in transcripts. The defense objected, but Judge Fall overruled the motion, and the jury never received a curative instruction.

Mount also reportedly dismissed critical digital evidence showing that the accuser’s claim—about being shown pornography before age 18—was technologically impossible. She had said it happened before 2000; the files in question were all created after 2002. Nonetheless, Mount characterized Dev’s rebuttal as “irrelevant,” manipulating the jury’s understanding of the timeline.

To top it off, he cast aspersions on the Dev family’s credibility as a whole, saying they “colluded” to mislead the jury, even though multiple witnesses—many unrelated—testified to Ajay’s integrity, compassion, and clean record.

A Verdict Without Justice

Jurors later acknowledged that the pretext call and closing arguments were decisive. As one family member wrote after the trial, “Ajay’s entire life was taken away from him because of a cultural-linguistic misunderstanding manipulated by the DA’s dramatic closing argument.”

In a six-week trial, the defense presented over 30 witnesses. Not a single one contradicted Dev’s character or credibility. And yet, the verdict was unanimous on 76 counts. The sentence: 378 years and four months—based largely on mistranslated phrases, speculative testimony, and the suppression of defense evidence.

This trial would go on to form the core of Ajay Dev’s habeas petition—and eventually, Judge Janene Beronio’s decision in 2025 to vacate the conviction. But for sixteen years, Dev, his family, and his community bore the weight of a verdict delivered not by truth, but by broken procedure.

Public Outcry: Protests, Rallies, and a Growing Movement

When Judge Timothy Fall sentenced Ajay Dev to 378 years in prison in August 2009, the reaction from the Davis and broader Nepali-American community was immediate and visceral. Within days, nearly 100 people gathered outside the courthouse to protest what they believed to be a gross miscarriage of justice. It was the beginning of a long campaign that would grow into one of the most sustained grassroots movements against a local conviction in Yolo County history.

At the initial protest, the mood was somber but determined. Many in the crowd were close friends and family members, holding signs calling for justice and chanting slogans condemning the verdict. Most were silent in the courtroom during sentencing—where Fall handed down the maximum sentence allowable under law—but outside, they were vocal.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Dev, who was sentenced to nearly 400 years, was wrongly convicted and is an innocent man,” said his attorney Michael Rothschild, who filed notice of appeal shortly after sentencing. That sentiment echoed through the crowd. Family members pointed out that Dev had no prior criminal record and emphasized the absence of physical evidence. Instead, the conviction rested entirely on the testimony of the accuser and the interpretation of a controversial pretext phone call.

That pretext call, a 50-minute conversation recorded at the behest of Davis Police Detective Mark Hermann, became a focal point in public discussions. Jurors later admitted that the call was what convinced them to convict—even while acknowledging the accuser’s testimony had serious credibility issues. “Yes, her testimony was difficult to swallow. If for her testimony alone, he would be a free man,” wrote one juror in an online comment. “The phone call is what put him where he is now.”

But the family argued the translation was flawed. The call was conducted in a mix of English and Nepali. “Any misunderstanding is due to language and cultural issues which are often times lost in the translation process,” the Dev family contended. “Ajay was trying to explain to the accuser how our legal system works… He was NOT admitting to rape.” Independent experts later agreed that critical phrases had been mistranslated or were inaudible, yet at trial, Judge Fall allowed the accuser to serve as her own interpreter.

Protesters also drew attention to stark racial disparities in charging and sentencing decisions in Yolo County under District Attorney Jeff Reisig. They pointed to comparative cases, including one involving Brett Pedroia—brother of MLB player Dustin Pedroia—who pleaded guilty to molesting a 9-year-old boy but received just one year in jail. Dev, a South Asian man who insisted on his innocence and exercised his right to trial, received 378 years.

As the years went on, the public campaign grew more organized. On the second anniversary of Dev’s conviction, a larger event was held, drawing family, advocates, and curious members of the public. Supporters spent hundreds of hours analyzing court transcripts, compiling timelines, and uncovering contradictions in the accuser’s testimony.

“There are at least 50 lies in that courtroom,” said Sanjay Dev, Ajay’s brother, at one rally. He accused Detective Hermann of coaching the witness during breaks in the trial and questioned the failure of the DA’s office to investigate obvious red flags in the accuser’s story—including discrepancies around pregnancy claims, contradictory timelines, and assertions disproved by digital evidence.

Peggy Dev, Ajay’s wife, advocated on behalf of her husband. On what would have been their 14th wedding anniversary, she stood before a crowd and described the pain of raising their two young sons without their father.

“She lied, she was angry at us, but she tried to retract that,” Peggy said of the accuser. “The police’s job is to investigate the facts and decide who is lying and who is telling the truth—but that didn’t happen here.”

The family’s frustrations were compounded by Judge Fall’s decision to exclude official court records from Nepal showing the accuser had been convicted of passport fraud and perjury—documents the defense argued were central to understanding her motive. The records showed she had falsified her date of birth in order to be adopted, and later sought to re-enter the U.S. despite that fraud. The jury was never allowed to consider this information.

On the third anniversary of the conviction, a crowd of 250 braved triple-digit heat to march from Freeman Park to the courthouse. The gathering featured speeches from family, community leaders, and supporters.

“Ajay is innocent,” declared Patty Pursell, Peggy’s sister. She noted the inconsistencies in the medical records and pregnancy timelines and argued that DA Reisig’s office had manipulated the pornography charges to inflame the jury—despite Dev being acquitted of those counts.

The public rallies also became a space for professional allies to speak up. Darryl Wein, a physician’s assistant at Mule Creek State Prison where Dev was incarcerated, recounted his initial skepticism—then eventual conviction—that Dev was innocent after reviewing the case. “That’s the cleanest c-file I’ve ever seen,” a prison guard reportedly told him.

Each year, the vigils grew in scope and symbolism. Posters, visual timelines, and side-by-side comparisons of testimony and contradictory facts were shared. Advocates distributed pamphlets and ran a website filled with documents, translations, and legal filings.

But it wasn’t just about the legal case. For many, the movement was about systemic injustice. “You don’t have a justice system when DAs get promoted based on their conviction rates,” said family friend Tom Grothe. “You’ll never find a better example of cash for convictions than in the case against Ajay Dev.”

In a letter shared at a rally, Dev wrote: “My faith carries me forward until I hit my wall of fear. I have been cruelly forced into this horrible situation. But we are paving the way for so many people who have been or someday will be wrongly accused and unjustly convicted.”

Over time, the Dev case became a touchstone for discussions around prosecutorial misconduct, translation accuracy in courtrooms, the treatment of immigrants, and structural racism in the criminal legal system. Through the work of the Advocates for Ajay group and the Vanguard’s coverage, the case drew increasing scrutiny from the public and others.

By 2016, the movement had grown to include high school students, university professors, and legal professionals who had never met Ajay Dev but were deeply troubled by the trial record. As the appeal worked its way through the courts, support for Dev remained steadfast, culminating in an even larger gathering outside the appellate court when oral arguments were finally heard.

The Appeal: Hope Raised and Denied

Following Ajay Dev’s 2009 conviction for 76 counts of sexual abuse and his staggering sentence of 378 years and four months in prison, his defense team initiated an appeal, setting in motion a legal battle that would last nearly a decade. At the center of the appeal were claims of mistranslation, prosecutorial misconduct, and the exclusion of exculpatory evidence—allegations that, if proven, could upend the conviction and offer a rare glimpse of hope to a family devastated by the outcome of the trial.

By 2016, after seven years of legal filings and procedural delays, the California Third District Court of Appeal finally granted oral arguments—a rare move in criminal appeals, signaling to many legal observers that the justices considered the case serious enough to warrant further scrutiny. The hearing was scheduled for October 19, 2016.

In a strong show of support, hundreds of Ajay Dev’s advocates—including friends, family members, and community supporters—gathered outside the Third Appellate Court at 914 Capitol Mall in Sacramento for a vigil and protest. Signs bearing messages like “378 Years Gone in a Blink of an Eye” reflected the anguish and determination of those who had followed Dev’s case closely and believed he had been wrongfully convicted.

The oral arguments unfolded before a three-justice panel: Presiding Justice Vance Raye and Associate Justices Louis Mauro and Harry Hull. Dev’s appellate attorney, Lauren Eskenazi, presented a litany of alleged legal errors committed during the original trial, many of which had been the subject of years of community concern and advocacy journalism in the Vanguard.

Central to Eskenazi’s arguments was the trial court’s decision to allow the alleged victim to translate her own pretext call—a 50-minute recorded conversation between herself and Ajay Dev, partially in English and partially in Nepali. “The accuser inserted an alleged confession into the transcript, which no independent expert has ever been able to verify,” Eskenazi’s brief argued. According to defense experts, key phrases were either mistranslated or entirely fabricated, including the infamous line: “But you had sex with me when you were 18.”

The brief explained that an accredited Nepali linguist testified at trial that the alleged confession was inaudible and, based on phonetic analysis, could not possibly have contained any Nepali word that meant “sex.” Despite this, the prosecution relied heavily on this portion of the call during closing arguments, presenting it as a confession and asking the jury to convict based on it. Two jurors later confirmed online that the pretext call had been pivotal in securing their guilty verdicts.

One juror wrote: “Yes, her testimony was difficult to swallow. If for her testimony alone, he would be a free man. The phone call is what put him where he is now. I am confident that we made the correct decision.” Another added, “In the pretext call, Ajay admitted to having sex with the victim after she was 18. The exact quote is ‘You f***ed me after age 18, that means you gave consent.’ The entire defense was that no sexual relationship occurred and that it was a story made up by the victim. With his admission, that defense was completely disregarded.”

Eskenazi argued forcefully that the court had erred by allowing the accuser—a biased party—to serve as an interpreter in her own case, rather than appointing a certified neutral translator. “This was not just unfair,” Eskenazi said in court, “It was an egregious violation of Mr. Dev’s due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.” She also raised concerns about the trial court’s refusal to admit certified court documents from Nepal showing that the accuser had been convicted of passport fraud and perjury—information that could have critically undermined her credibility.

Another major point of contention was the conduct of Deputy District Attorney Steve Mount. In his closing argument, Mount told the jury that he had personally heard Dev confess during the preliminary hearing. No transcript or evidence was ever produced to support this claim, and the defense never had an opportunity to challenge or cross-examine it. “This was a fabricated claim inserted into the trial at the last minute, and it could not be substantiated,” Eskenazi argued. “It is prosecutorial misconduct of the highest order.”

Deputy Attorney General Michael Dolida, representing the state, pushed back against these arguments. He claimed that Judge Fall had properly excluded the Nepali court records due to authentication issues and that any translation discrepancies were for the jury to resolve. He defended the prosecutor’s use of the pretext call and argued that Dev’s statements during the call were tantamount to an admission.

Dolida also asserted that the complainant’s account of an abortion, a miscarriage and another pregnancy supported her claim of prolonged sexual abuse. However, this assertion contradicted the trial record, which confirmed that there had only been one documented abortion—during a time when the complainant was sexually active with a boyfriend, not living in the Dev household. Despite this, the appellate court appeared to accept Dolida’s assertion at face value, drawing criticism from Dev’s family and legal team.

Following the hearing, Peggy Dev, Ajay’s wife, expressed cautious optimism: “My hope is that they deeply look at the case and decide in Ajay’s favor, because he is innocent. The hardest part has been seeing my children grow up without their dad. They know him only through letters and phone calls.”

Ajay’s brother, Sanjay Dev, added, “My stomach was in knots. I looked at the judges’ faces, hoping for a sign. The translation issue—that’s what proves his innocence. That’s what convinced me.”

Despite the impassioned arguments and outpouring of public support, the appellate panel issued a ruling in early 2017 denying the appeal. In its written opinion, the court acknowledged that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury under CALCRIM No. 359, which requires independent evidence to corroborate out-of-court statements. However, the court deemed the error “harmless” and upheld the conviction.

“Based on our review of the entire record, we are confident defendant received a fair trial,” the justices wrote. They dismissed the translation controversy by stating that it was within the jury’s purview to decide witness credibility, and they declined to address the issue of bias inherent in allowing the complainant to serve as interpreter. The court also summarily rejected the defense’s claim that the jury had been improperly influenced by unproven pornography charges—despite the fact that Dev was acquitted of all related counts.

Perhaps most troubling was the court’s mischaracterization of the pretext call. The justices wrote that Dev had “made statements that he deserved to be put in prison, that he threatened to kill the victim and himself, that the victim’s life would be ruined because she had sex with defendant after she turned 18 and thus had consented, that they met together at a motel, and that nothing would happen because the victim had no proof.” The defense maintained that this account was not only misleading but directly contradicted by expert testimony at trial.

For Dev’s family and supporters, the appellate court’s ruling was more than just a legal setback—it was a reaffirmation of systemic failure. “This isn’t justice,” said Patty Pursell, Peggy Dev’s sister. “It’s the rubber stamp of a flawed system unwilling to correct its mistakes.”

The denial of the appeal marked a turning point. While the direct appeal was now exhausted, Dev’s legal team immediately began preparing a habeas corpus petition—a longer, more comprehensive legal challenge that would allow the introduction of new evidence, including expert testimony on translation, ineffective assistance of counsel claims, and forensic flaws in the prosecution’s timeline.

In the wake of the ruling, supporters didn’t back down. Instead, the setback deepened their resolve, highlighting the uphill battle faced by those challenging wrongful convictions in a system that places enormous weight on jury verdicts, even in the face of compelling new evidence.

“The appeal didn’t deliver justice,” I wrote at the time. “But it did lay bare the failures of the trial—and it opened the door for what would come next.”

The Habeas Phase: Uncovering the Truth

Following the denial of his direct appeal, Ajay Dev’s legal team pursued a habeas corpus petition—arguably the most formidable legal remedy in post-conviction litigation. Unlike a direct appeal, which focuses solely on errors within the trial record, a habeas petition allows the introduction of new evidence previously unavailable or improperly excluded. Dev’s habeas case would come to embody years of meticulous investigative work, expert analysis, and a mounting body of evidence that cast deep doubt on the integrity of the original trial.

The Pretext Call: Reexamined and Discredited

The cornerstone of the prosecution’s case—and ultimately the conviction—was a 50-minute pretext call recorded between the accuser and Ajay Dev. During trial, the jury was told by the prosecution that Dev admitted to having sex with the accuser after she turned 18, using the line “you f***ed me after age 18, that means you gave consent.” Two jurors would later cite this as the determining factor in their verdict. But in the habeas proceedings, Dev’s defense team went further than they had during trial—they obtained a state-of-the-art forensic linguistic analysis of the recording.

Independent Nepali-English linguists, unaffiliated with either the defense or prosecution, analyzed the audio using enhanced forensic tools and determined that the key phrase presented to the jury had been mistranslated—fatally. According to the expert findings, what Dev actually said was closer to “you came to me when you were 18,” which was neither an admission of guilt nor a confession of sexual activity. In fact, it was part of a broader hypothetical scenario where Dev warned the accuser about the potential legal ramifications of false statements—a warning that had been manipulated into a fabricated confession.

Critically, the court in the original trial had denied the defense’s request to appoint a neutral, court-certified interpreter. Instead, the judge allowed the accuser herself to translate segments of the phone call from Nepali to English—a decision widely condemned by legal experts and linguists. In the habeas petition, Dev’s team emphasized how this conflict of interest compromised the fairness of the proceedings and violated his due process rights.

As stated in the habeas briefing:

“This is not a mere disagreement over interpretation. It is the difference between a fabricated confession and a denial of guilt. The court’s failure to ensure impartial translation deprived Mr. Dev of a fair trial.”

New Evidence from Nepal: The Passport Fraud Conviction

One of the most controversial exclusions during the original trial was a set of certified Nepali court documents showing that the accuser had been convicted of passport fraud and perjury—evidence that the defense contended was directly relevant to her credibility and possible motive. During the trial, Judge Timothy Fall ruled that the documents were inadmissible due to insufficient authentication, even though they had been translated and stamped by the appropriate foreign authorities.

In the habeas phase, Dev’s attorneys overcame this barrier by securing affidavits from high-ranking Nepali legal officials verifying the authenticity of the documents. These included sworn statements from court clerks and legal officers familiar with the records. The documents showed that the accuser had knowingly lied about her age in order to gain a U.S. visa—an act that carried serious consequences for her immigration status. If she were deported, her legal residency and path to citizenship would be at risk. The defense argued that this fear—compounded by a growing rift with the Dev family—created a motive to fabricate allegations against Ajay Dev.

The court’s refusal to admit this evidence in 2009 was, according to the habeas team, a profound miscarriage of justice. As they wrote in a supplemental brief:

“These documents establish not only a motive to lie, but a pattern of dishonesty under oath. The jury was entitled to know the full context of the accuser’s background and credibility.”

Witnesses Come Forward: “She Said She Made It Up”

Perhaps the most striking revelation during the habeas proceedings came in the form of new witness testimony. Multiple individuals who had known the accuser came forward—many for the first time—offering sworn declarations. Some were from family members; others were from former classmates and neighbors. The consistent theme across these statements was that the accuser had privately admitted to fabricating the allegations against Dev.

In one of the most damning pieces of evidence, the accuser’s own sister posted a Facebook message stating, “She said she made it up because she wanted to stay in America.” Others confirmed that the accuser had long been fearful of being sent back to Nepal and that her relationship with the Devs had deteriorated significantly over time, especially after they confronted her about her relationships and academic struggles.

Additionally, the defense submitted school records and medical documentation that undermined the timeline of alleged pregnancies and abortions. In trial, the accuser claimed to have had three abortions caused by Dev. But medical records showed only one abortion and one miscarriage—and both coincided with time periods when the accuser was dating older men her parents had forbidden her from seeing. One of those boyfriends testified that they had been sexually active during the same period when Dev was alleged to have committed repeated rapes—making it medically and logically implausible that Dev was the father.

Systemic Failures and Prosecutorial Conduct

Beyond the evidence itself, the habeas brief painted a stark picture of a trial process marred by systemic failures. Among the most disturbing was the conduct of the prosecution, particularly Deputy DA Steve Mount. Mount had claimed during closing arguments that he overheard Dev confess to the charges during a preliminary hearing. No transcript ever corroborated this. In the habeas petition, the defense emphasized that this was a clear misrepresentation of fact—an invented narrative designed to inflame the jury.

The habeas brief further detailed how the state’s opposition appeared to lean heavily on insinuation rather than evidence. As Dev’s attorney noted:

“Respondents have repeatedly accused defense counsel, interpreters, family members, and even court-certified experts of being part of a vast conspiracy—without producing a single piece of credible evidence to support those claims.”

They documented threats made by prosecutors against potential defense witnesses, including Ajay’s brother Sanjay Dev and wife Peggy Dev. According to sworn declarations, the prosecution warned them they could face charges for fabricating evidence if they testified in support of Ajay. This effectively intimidated key witnesses out of testifying, leaving the jury without a full picture of the case.

Shifting the Burden of Proof

The habeas petition also tackled the state’s repeated attempts to apply an outdated and overly burdensome standard to the evidence. As the defense pointed out, California’s legislature had already revised Penal Code §1473, making clear that new evidence needed only to be “sufficiently material and credible that it more likely than not would have changed the outcome of the case.” The state, however, continued to argue for a stricter threshold—ignoring the legislative reforms that were enacted precisely to prevent wrongful convictions like Dev’s from going unremedied.

In their closing habeas argument, Dev’s attorneys laid out the stakes:

“This case presents not just an extraordinary volume of new evidence—but also evidence that directly undermines the foundation of the state’s case. The pretext call. The credibility of the accuser. The suppressed documents. The excluded witnesses. Each would have impacted the jury’s verdict. Taken together, they demand a new trial.”

As the habeas proceedings drew to a close, hope once again rose that Ajay Dev might finally receive the justice that had eluded him since 2004. For his family, supporters, and legal team, the petition was not just a technical legal remedy—it was a moral reckoning with a system that had failed.

Judge Beronio’s Decision: A Turning Point

After nearly sixteen years of litigation, protests, appeals, and hearings, a pivotal moment arrived in May 2025, when Yolo County Superior Court Judge Janene Beronio overturned Ajay Dev’s conviction in a sweeping habeas corpus ruling. This moment was not merely a legal turning point—it was the culmination of years of advocacy, new evidence, expert testimony, and relentless questioning of a criminal verdict that had condemned Dev to a 378-year sentence for crimes he insisted he did not commit.

The final stage of the habeas process began in earnest in April 2025, when both sides submitted their written closing arguments following a multi-year evidentiary hearing. The hearing itself had stretched from 2018 to 2025, delayed by the pandemic, changes in counsel, and the logistical challenges of securing witnesses and documents from both the United States and Nepal. The final briefs brought together a decade and a half of evidence—some newly discovered, some long dismissed or excluded—into one final reckoning.

Leading Dev’s defense was Sacramento-based attorney Jennifer Mouzis, who had stepped into the case midstream and emerged as a fierce advocate. In her closing brief, she argued that the trial had been fundamentally flawed—not just in isolated moments, but in its very structure. According to Mouzis, Dev’s previous attorney had failed to properly challenge the translation of the now-infamous pretext phone call, and had not taken the necessary steps to authenticate critical evidence from Nepal, including official court records showing that the accuser had been convicted of passport fraud and perjury.

Under California’s revised post-conviction standard for habeas relief—reformed in 2021 via SB 97—Mouzis needed to show that the newly presented evidence, if introduced at trial, would “more likely than not” have resulted in a different outcome. The old standard, far more demanding, required petitioners to prove that no reasonable juror would have voted to convict. Under the new law, the threshold shifted toward recognizing that serious doubt, not absolute certainty, should justify relief.

On May 17, 2025, Judge Beronio delivered her ruling from the bench and issued a comprehensive written order shortly thereafter. In it, she granted Ajay Dev’s petition for habeas corpus, vacated his conviction, and ordered a new trial. In doing so, she meticulously outlined the constitutional failings of the original proceedings and rebuked several key pillars of the prosecution’s case.

Her ruling was clear: Ajay Dev did not receive a fair trial.

Among the most damning findings was that Dev’s trial counsel had rendered constitutionally deficient performance by failing to admit properly authenticated Nepali court documents that could have impeached the accuser’s credibility. These documents showed that the accuser had previously lied under oath about her age to gain immigration benefits—a fact directly relevant to the prosecution’s timeline of alleged abuse and the legal definition of statutory rape under California law. As Judge Beronio noted, these records were not just marginally important; they were central to the charges involving underage sexual conduct. If the correct age had been used, at least a dozen counts tied to Dev’s alleged assault of a minor would not have been legally viable.

The court also found fault in the defense’s failure to challenge the prosecution’s interpretation of the pretext phone call. This recording—partially in English, partially in Nepali—was orchestrated by Davis Police and relied upon heavily by the prosecution at trial. During the original proceedings, the accuser was allowed to translate the call herself, a decision that Mouzis called “absurd” and “contrary to every basic standard of evidentiary integrity.” The trial jury was led to believe that Dev had confessed to having sex with his adopted daughter. But new forensic audio analysis and testimony from professional linguists revealed that the alleged confession was not only mistranslated, but in fact non-existent. As Judge Beronio noted, “the enhanced call revealed no sexual content and no admission of guilt. By the end of the call, it was clear that the accuser did not believe she had received a confession.”

The ruling was also a direct rejection of the conspiracy theory advanced by the District Attorney’s office—that the defense, including multiple attorneys and even Nepali witnesses, had fabricated documents or engaged in witness tampering. In her decision, Beronio wrote unequivocally, “The court finds no credible evidence that the defense fabricated documents or conspired to suborn perjury.” This statement not only cleared Dev’s legal team of misconduct but also restored legitimacy to the testimony of several defense witnesses whom the prosecution had sought to discredit without substantive evidence.

Judge Beronio also addressed the new witness evidence presented during the habeas phase. Among those testifying were Nepali school officials, family members, and acquaintances who said the accuser had privately admitted fabricating the allegations. Two such witnesses were deemed “credible, reliable, and non-cumulative” by the court—terms that carry significant legal weight in the context of habeas review. One witness described a pregnancy scare inconsistent with claims of repeated unprotected rape, while another testified that the accuser had confessed to making up the charges as retaliation for being removed from Dev’s will and sent back to Nepal.

One of the most emotionally resonant moments came not from the ruling itself but from a statement prepared by Ajay Dev in anticipation of the court’s decision. Though it was not read aloud in court, the Davis Vanguard published the full text shortly after the hearing. In it, Dev thanked Judge Beronio for her diligence, his attorney Jennifer Mouzis for her tireless advocacy, and his family and supporters for sustaining him through what he called “the darkest years of my life.” He also addressed the accuser directly—not with bitterness, but with compassion: “I hold no hatred toward Sapna. I pray for her peace.” The statement underscored Dev’s consistent stance throughout the proceedings: that he was innocent, but not vengeful.

In the courtroom, quiet tears and embraces followed the judge’s decision. Family members who had spent years rallying in front of courthouses, poring over legal transcripts, and organizing community fundraisers finally witnessed a measure of vindication. But the joy was tempered by the awareness that the fight was not yet over. A bail hearing was scheduled for the following week, where Dev’s legal team would argue for his release on his own recognizance. And while the District Attorney had the option to appeal the ruling or retry the case, the depth and breadth of the court’s findings made those paths legally precarious and politically fraught.

During her oral remarks, Judge Beronio acknowledged the weight of her decision. “I believe he may be innocent,” she said—words that carried not just legal significance, but moral gravity. For the first time in sixteen years, Ajay Dev was no longer a convicted man. He was once again presumed innocent.

For the broader public, the ruling reverberated beyond Yolo County. The case had long been cited by civil rights groups, criminal justice reformers, and cultural advocates as a cautionary tale about the intersection of prosecutorial overreach, translation error, and systemic bias. The reversal marked a watershed moment—not only for Dev and his family but for the many other defendants whose convictions rest on fragile foundations.

Judge Beronio’s decision, grounded in meticulous legal analysis and a clear moral compass, stands as a testament to the enduring power of post-conviction review. In an era when the finality of verdicts is too often valorized over their validity, her ruling serves as a reminder that justice is not about preserving the integrity of convictions—it is about preserving the integrity of truth.

Whether or not prosecutors pursue a retrial, one thing is now undeniable: Ajay Dev has finally been heard. And for the first time in sixteen years, the system has listened.

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