An Arroyo Seco man caught selling allegedly stolen property said he was bullied by police and duped by his alleged victim.
Harold Gutierrez, 46, acknowledged a three-wheeler and a washer and dryer set he was selling in early February out of his home could have very well been stolen. Gutierrez said he bought those and other items second-hand from a man near Peñasco.
“That’s what I do for a living: I buy and sell things,” Gutierrez said. “I go to yard sales, salvage yards. I dumpster dive. I fix things up and paint them and sell them.”
Gutierrez said before he bought the goods for $150 and loaded them onto his trailer, he pressed the man for assurances that the property was not stolen.
“I guess it was baloney, too good to be true,” Gutierrez said. “But then again, how do you know for sure? A lot of the things you bought in a store two years ago, do you still have the receipt? Does that mean you can’t sell them again, or that it’s crime if I buy them from you?”
Mike Martinez, whose Velarde home had been burglarized Feb. 2, called State Police after he saw Gutierrez selling his property alongside Highway 84/285.
State Police officers Chris Beavers and Chad Roberts arrived at Gutierrez’s house to find him stripping the serial number off the three-wheeler, according to police records.
Gutierrez denied he was tampering with the serial number and said he tried to cooperate with police and explain how he had bought the goods. Gutierrez also tried to tell officers that the man who arrived with them to identify the stolen property was the same man who had sold it to him about a week earlier.
“At least it really looked like him — Hispanic guy with glasses, a mustache like this,” Gutierrez said. “Maybe used me to try to do like an insurance-fraud thing. I tried to tell the officers, but they just said, ‘Bull, the property’s stolen,’ and they put me in the back of the car.”
Beavers said Gutierrez may have told officers that — among about six other conflicting statements he gave police.
“It seemed like he was trying to make something up,” Beavers said.
Beavers said Martinez and his family members went to Gutierrez’s house to identify the stolen property. Martinez could not be reached for comment for this story.
Gutierrez also said police didn’t only take Martinez’ property when they raided his house. They also confiscated other property that was rightfully his, including an air compressor and a tool set his father had given him.
Gutierrez said he has tried unsuccessfully to retrieve his property from the State Police.
Beavers acknowledged it was likely that police took property from Gutierrez that was not stolen.
“It was a lot of stuff and it was impossible to tell which was which,” Beavers said. “But we can’t just give it back to him until his case is resolved. The (District Attorney) won’t allow it. I told (Gutierrez) he should go to the DA’s, and maybe the could authorize releasing the property.
State Police Sgt. Chris Valdez questioned Gutierrez’s claim that the property belongs to him. For example, the air compressor appears to be unused and still has some of its store packaging.
“Does that look like a old air compressor his dad gave him?” Valdez asked. “I don’t know. If he brings in a receipt, or even if he comes in with his dad and he can show me, ‘Look, I bought this, this is the credit card I used to pay for it.’ If he can show that stuff is his, then I’ll believe it.”
Gutierrez, who is free on bond, has been charged with receiving stolen property and receiving or transferring a stolen motor vehicle, both felony counts. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing April 7 before Santa Fe Magistrate Court Judge David Segura, according to an online court records database.