A Dallas County judge on Monday delayed the trial of a former Dallas police officer accused of sexually assaulting underage girls.
The trial for Tyrone Williams Jr. was scheduled to start Monday morning in Judge Hector Garza’s 195th District Court at the Frank Crowley Courts Building. Garza moved to postpone the trial, a Dallas County district attorney’s office spokesperson confirmed.
A new trial date has not yet been set.
Williams, 52, faces two counts of sexual assault of a child, with one tied to allegations of assaults in 2011 and the other in 2021. Each is a second-degree felony, carrying a possible sentence of two to 20 years in prison.
Williams’ attorney, Scottie Allen, did not return messages seeking comment Monday.
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The postponement comes after prosecutors filed a motion last week seeking to reschedule the trial, telling Garza that the lead detective in the case was not available to attend.
Police have arrested Williams twice, once in June 2021 for the allegation that year and again in May 2022 for the incident in 2011.
At the time of the second arrest, Allen described Williams’ accusers as being “severely troubled youth with a myriad of disciplinary and mental health issues.”
“What’s even more troubling than their stories is the fact that there are those who would use them for profit and to vindicate their petty politics,” Allen wrote in a prepared statement at the time. “We look forward to bringing this case before the proper tribunal as quickly as possible for full and complete vindication!!”
The 2021 case is tied to an incident at Williams’ South Oak Cliff home, where he was accused of assaulting a girl whose parents he was friends with, The Dallas Morning News reported. The parents then contacted the authorities to report him.
In the 2011 case, Williams was accused of assaulting a teenage girl for about seven months. He was friends with the girl’s mother, and he and another officer “recovered her” after she ran away from home and was found at a motel, an officer wrote in an arrest-warrant affidavit.
The girl was a victim of sex trafficking, and police arrested her trafficker, who was convicted on a charge of prostitution of a child and sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to the affidavit.
A Dallas County grand jury handed up indictments for both cases in March 2023.
Williams joined the department in 2009 and was last assigned to the South Central patrol division. He resigned from the department in early October 2022 while on leave during an ongoing internal affairs investigation, according to employment records reviewed by The News.