A 47-year-old Arroyo Seco woman has been charged by Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies for allegedly hitting a bicycle rider, sending her flying 8 feet, then fleeing the scene on April 10, and prosecutors are requesting she be held without bail as a danger to the community.
Deputies charged Michele Savinsky with leaving the scene of an accident causing great bodily harm, a third-degree felony, failure to give information and render aid in an accident causing great bodily harm, a fourth-degree felony, and petty misdemeanors for failure to give immediate notice of accidents and reckless driving.
The crash appears to have happened near the Dreamcatcher intersection of U.S. Highway 84/285 and State Road 399.
Incident
Deputy Francisco Villicana wrote in a statement of probable cause for Savinsky’s arrest that when deputies arrived, the victim, Ysabella Maez, was on the ground. Her bicycle had “heavy” rear-wheel damage and frame damage. She had cuts to her forehead and couldn’t move. She was transported to the hospital.
One witness told Villicana that he was driving behind a gold that hit Maez, launching her 8 feet, then drove away, he wrote.
Another witness said he didn’t see the car hit Maez but he did get the license plate of the gold car as it drove away, Villicana wrote.
A third witness told deputies she saw the gold car, with “heavy front end passenger side damage” at the intersection of State Road 399 and U.S. Highway 84/285, and described the driver as a light-complected woman with her dark hair up.
Deputies then went to Savinsky’s house where they saw the gold car, with “heavy damage” to the passenger side bumper and windshield.
“There was also hair hanging out of the broken part of the windshield,” Villicana wrote.
Footsteps in the dirt led from the car to the front of the house, he wrote.
A man standing outside told deputies that Savinsky was in the house, although she did not immediately answer the door.
When she did, she was in a towel and gave deputies permission to come inside.
Villicana did not write if it appeared Savinsky had just showered or was just dressed in a towel.
Inside the house was a man, Adrian Roybal, whom Savinsky said was her nephew. However, he was identified by the other man as Savinsky’s boyfriend, he wrote.
She claimed she was home all day and deputies then arrested her and took her to the sheriff’s office, he wrote.
There, she told deputies her boyfriend took off with her car the previous night and she hides her keys from him.
She wouldn’t answer questions about why there were footprints from the car to the house and why her “nephew” was identified as her boyfriend by another witness, he wrote.
“I asked Michele why witness statements state that they saw a female matching her description striking Ysabelle with her vehicle and flee the scene of the collision,” he wrote. “Michele stated she was not driving.”
Villicana wrote that he pulled her over on March 25, just a few weeks before the crash, and her car didn’t have the damage it did after the crash and asked why her car was newly damaged.
“(She) could not provide an answer,” he wrote.
Villicana also wrote he asked her why the car seat was set to nearly the steering wheel, for a short person like herself, and not a taller person like her described boyfriend whom she alleged took her car.
“Michele ultimately stated that she is the only one who drives her Acura,” he wrote.
A danger?
Villicana filed the charges the same day he arrested Savinsky and the following day, prosecutor Kent Wahlquist asked for her first appearance to be continued so prosecutors could decide if they were going to file to have her held without bail as a danger to the community.
On Monday, Wahlquist filed the motion to have Savinsky detained without bail and estimated it would take four hours for a combined preliminary and dangerousness hearing.
He wrote that the weight of evidence against her is strong and that “including the nature of this incident and the Defendant’s criminal history, it is clear that the Defendant will not comply with Court orders and will commit new offenses,” he wrote.
As evidence, he submitted the criminal complaint and a printout of her criminal history.
He did not, however, give any specifics in what makes her a danger to the community, aside from what she was charged with and her past offenses.
Savinsky has a record of traffic infractions, including the March ticket Villicana wrote for failure to maintain a lane (arraignment set for May), no seatbelts in 2023 (dismissed), speeding 16-20 mph over in 2019 (no contest plea), speeding 16-20 over again in 2018 (dismissed) and careless driving in 2018 (no contest plea).
In 2010, she pleaded guilty to first-offense drunk driving, according to online court dockets.