Española City Police officers charged a homeless woman, looking for a place to sleep, with felony breaking and entering for getting into a van being stored and sleeping in it.
Officer Ralph Martinez arrested Jeaneen Maestas, 29, on March 4. In his criminal complaint, he lists both March 4 and Feb. 4 as the date of the incident.
In a criminal complaint for Maestas’s arrest, he wrote that at 12:23 p.m., he was sent to the 1100 block of North Riverside Drive for a breaking and entering call.
When he arrived, Maestas was already “detained” by two other officers. Juanita Zengerle told him that her daughter, Maya Maez, called her to say “something did not look right outside with the vehicle covers.”
Zengerle told Martinez she then drove to the house and saw the cover was off one of the vehicles, which was not normal. She approached her daughter’s parked and stored 1996 Chevy van, opened the back door, and saw someone asleep with a sleeping bag over their whole body, except their feet. She carefully closed the door and called 911, Martinez wrote.
Both Zengerle and Maez said they’ve had problems with people trying to sleep in a house on their property that they don’t use, so they boarded it up.
Martinez asked Maestas what she was doing inside the van and she allegedly told him that she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, and that she was cold and tired and wanted to sleep, he wrote.
“Jeaned (sic) explained that she was walking around the property and did not think she would get in trouble,” he wrote. “At this time I told Jeaneen she was under arrest and notified Española Dispatch.”
Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo released Maestas from jail the following day on her own recognizance. No further court hearings have been set, after a status conference on March 26 was canceled.