By David Greenwald April 20, 2025
In what may go down as his final courtroom appearance of his long prosecutorial career, Steve Mount stood before a Yolo County courtroom, brushed aside the law, cast aside evidence, and declared his commitment not to justice, but to securing the conviction of Ajay Dev—at any cost.
Mount, who had to renew his bar card just to handle this case after retirement, wasn’t just defending the state’s position. He was performing a ritual we’ve seen too many times: a prosecutor protecting a conviction, even when the facts and the law no longer justify it. But what he did in that courtroom was more than routine. It was a disgrace. A disgrace to the court, to the legal process, and to the idea that the purpose of prosecution is to pursue justice—not simply to win.
At one point, Mount said, plainly, “I don’t really care what the legal standard was—I don’t think they proved their case at all.”
That statement should disqualify any prosecutor from being taken seriously. It should have ended his argument right then and there. But it didn’t. And that’s why this case—and this closing—is about more than Ajay Dev. It’s about what happens when the system itself no longer demands that its prosecutors care about the truth.
I’ve been asked many times over the years: what do you have against DA Jeff Reisig? I usually answer by pointing to his record—how he’s treated people like Pat Lenzi, Dean Johansson, Tracie Olson, Cynthia Rodriguez, and Justin Gonzalez—among so many others. But more than any of those examples, I look at what his office has done to the Dev family.
The lengths to which this office has gone to preserve this conviction are staggering. We’ve seen prosecutors in wrongful conviction cases dig in their heels, reinvent implausible theories, and cast aspersions on anyone who dares challenge their case. That’s exactly what we’re seeing here—live, in real time.
Mount didn’t back off. If anything, he doubled down.
He dismissed the enhanced pretext call—the very evidence the state used to argue that Dev had confessed—as “not new” and “not meaningful.” For those unfamiliar, this is the centerpiece of the original case: an eight-second snippet from a recorded phone call that prosecutors claimed was a sexual admission. At the time of trial, that portion of the tape was inaudible. Today, with enhanced audio technology, independent interpreters now hear the phrase: “you came with me since 18 years.” No sexual content. No admission.
So what does Mount do with that? He claims it doesn’t matter. He argues there were two admissions on the tape. But as Jennifer Mouzis pointed out in her closing argument, if there was truly an admission, why did Sapna—Ajay’s adopted daughter and sole accuser—go on to say more than two dozen times, “Daddy, why won’t you admit it?” Why would she keep pleading for a confession if she believed she had already received one?
The answer is simple. There was no confession.
The prosecution’s entire case rests on those eight seconds. This is how narrow the line is between freedom and a 378-year prison sentence: one misunderstood phrase, heard differently by different interpreters, shaped by poor audio and cultural nuance, and stripped of context.
Even with that thin thread unraveling, Mount didn’t blink. Instead, he launched a campaign of character assassination so sweeping it bordered on the paranoid. He accused Ajay Dev and his brother Sanjay of orchestrating an elaborate, years-long conspiracy. According to Mount, every single person who testified in support of Dev—from retired headmasters to schoolteachers, from family members to world-renowned appellate lawyers—was either lying or manipulated into perjury.
He brought no evidence. Just suspicion.
I’ve known the Dev family for more than 15 years. I’ve visited Ajay countless times at Mule Creek. I’ve spoken to Sanjay regularly. Sanjay is one of the most soft-spoken, humble people I’ve ever met—hardly the mastermind of a criminal enterprise. And yet Mount portrayed him as a puppet master, directing an international scheme from a suburban home, threatening witnesses, fabricating Facebook messages, and falsifying statements. No proof. No charges. Just accusation.
In his written closing, Mount even accused Sangita Dev, who testified that Sapna admitted fabricating the allegations of being coached into falsehood through jail calls with Ajay. He claimed the calls amounted to “persuasion,” painting a picture of coercion. But anyone who knows Ajay—or who listened to those calls—knows that’s not what happened. Ajay was doing what anyone might do when a family member is nervous, fearful, and reluctant to testify: he reminded her of things she had already said, helped her feel grounded, and encouraged her to tell the truth. That’s not coercion. That’s compassion.
Mount even went so far as to accuse Shweta Deo—a schoolteacher from Nepal—of lying under oath because her travel to the U.S. had been paid for. He claimed her testimony fell apart because she “could not stick to her script.” Mouzis responded forcefully: there was no script. She had never even spoken to Shweta before her testimony. Mount’s argument had no basis. Just innuendo.
And what was her testimony? That Sapna was angry at Ajay for sending her back to Nepal. That she had become pregnant multiple times. That she feared being removed from Ajay’s will. That she threatened to falsely accuse him—and later did.
This isn’t just one person’s story. It’s corroborated by multiple witnesses, including Bhabendra Yadav, a retired headmaster who testified that Sapna told him she lied. Mount called Yadav part of the conspiracy too—again, no evidence. Just speculation.
Perhaps most offensive was Mount’s repeated reference to Sapna as “the girl,” despite the fact that she is now nearly 40 years old and was a young adult at the time of the alleged events. Mouzis rightly called him out for this condescension, this minimization, this attempt to infantilize the one person the state refused to call to testify during the evidentiary hearing.
Yes, they didn’t even bring her in.
If the state believes in her story so fully, why not put her on the stand? Why not let her affirm her claims under oath, face cross-examination, and stand behind the conviction they’ve built entirely around her?
We know why.
Because her credibility has collapsed.
Because she was convicted of passport fraud in Nepal—a conviction the prosecution has tried to erase from the record, even as it goes to the heart of her age and trustworthiness.
Because the only thing keeping this case alive is the state’s refusal to let go.
Mount’s closing argument is what happens when a prosecutor’s job becomes defending a result, not seeking the truth. It’s why wrongful convictions happen. It’s why innocent people sit in prison for decades. And it’s why people lose faith in the justice system.
It didn’t have to be this way.
When I first began covering this case as a young reporter, something didn’t sit right. I couldn’t have articulated it at the time. But now, sixteen years later, it’s crystal clear. This is a house of cards. Built on a questionable recording, a single witness, and a refusal to accept that the system might have gotten it wrong.
I’ve watched Ajay’s sons grow up without their father. They were toddlers when I met them. Today, one towers over me. The other wears a full goatee. That’s what’s been stolen—not just 378 years from Ajay, but an entire childhood from his family members.
Mount’s closing wasn’t just his own disgrace. It was the system’s.
Because the system let him say it. Let him accuse an entire family. Let him disregard the legal standard. Let him pretend that eight seconds of ambiguity was enough to send a man away for life.
And unless the court now does what the law and facts require—unless it grants relief and overturns this conviction—it will prove that the disgrace doesn’t stop with Mount.
It will prove that everyday injustice wins.
But I still believe we have a chance to get this right.
Let’s hope the court does too.
