A Dulce man will spend a maximum of two years and three months in federal prison when he is sentenced in May for attacking his wife in 2021.
Orlyn Vigil, 48, is set to be sentenced May 13 on one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, a vehicle, in federal district court in Albuquerque.
Vigil pleaded guilty to the charge on Feb. 5. According to his plea deal, prosecutors dropped two other charges. The plea deal set a cap on his sentence at two years and three months.
According to the plea deal, Vigil admitted that on Nov. 16, 2021, he argued with his wife, got upset, hit her and put his hands around her neck. His wife is referred to as “Jane Doe” in court documents.
“I threw Jane Doe into some trash cans and she struck her head on the bar of the trash can holder,” he wrote in the plea deal. “Jane Doe then tried to go outside to call police, but I pushed her to the ground from behind. Jane Doe walked toward her vehicle when I knocked her to the ground with my Ford Mustang at a slow speed.”
Vigil is a member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
If the plea deal hadn’t set his sentence at two years and three months, he would have faced a maximum sentence of 10 years on the assault charge.
Prosecutors dropped charges of assaulting a partner by strangulation and assault on a partner.
A federal grand jury indicted him on the three counts on April 25, 2024.
He was released to a halfway house in Albuquerque and then to his aunt’s house in Dulce. His lawyer has asked that he be allowed to remain on bail pending sentencing, which a judge hasn’t ruled on.
State of the case
Details of the alleged attack come from the plea deal and a motion by his lawyer, federal public defender Dennis Candelaria, to allow him to remain released pending sentencing.
Candelaria wrote that Vigil is working for the Jicarilla Apache Utility Authority while living with his sister. He has had that job for nine years and provides for his wife and “family.”
Before he was indicted, he was living with his wife, the victim, whom he has lived with for 20 years, he wrote.
Vigil was charged in tribal court for the attack on his wife and he pleaded guilty to domestic violence, assault and battery and reckless driving.
“Mr. Vigil was sentenced to 12 months custody,” Candelaria wrote. “His time was suspended and was placed on supervised probation. Among his conditions of probation, Mr. Vigil was ordered to have no contact for one year with the victim. He was not allowed back in his home for one year.”
After probation was over, he went back to live with his family in March 2023, he wrote.
“He lived with his wife without any incidents before his arrest of the federal charges over a year later,” he wrote.