Staff Report:

When jurors were unable to agree unanimously on a verdict in a perjury trial held last week in District Court in Los Alamos, Judge Jason Lidyard declared a mistrial.

The case involved former Los Alamos Police Det. Matthew Lyon and whether he was being truthful when testifying under oath in 2023 that he did not fraternize with confidential informants related to a drug trafficking case against Eric Greene of White Rock. The charge of perjury is a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison.

Lyon testified that he did answer truthfully because while he did fraternize with the individuals, they were not confidential informants at the time he answered the question. In his closing statement to the jury Thursday, Lyon’s attorney John D’Amato Jr., reiterated to jurors that his client did answer truthfully to the question asked at the time as he was not fraternizing with confidential informants.

In her closing statement, 5th Judicial District Attorney Dianna Luce, a special prosecutor in the Lyon’s case, emphasized to the jurors that Lyon knew who he was being questioned about, so he did commit perjury when he answered no to fraternizing with those individuals.

Court records show the criminal charges against Greene of two counts of trafficking controlled substances, one count of distribution of a controlled substance and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, were dropped the day of Lyon’s testimony in 2023 and the perjury charge was filed against Lyon that same day in Los Alamos County Magistrate Court.

A mistrial due to a deadlocked jury does not mean that the defendant is acquitted or convicted; instead, it resets the case to a pre-trial state, giving the prosecution and defense the opportunity to decide how to proceed.

Judge Lidyard has now scheduled a new preliminary hearing in the Lyon case for April 16.