Child abuse charges against a man accused of allowing his infant child to overdose on fentanyl before the child was revived have been dropped by prosecutors as part of an agreement in a district court case.
Prosecutors dismissed the magistrate court case against Matthew Padilla, 34, of Española, on May 12.
Prosecutor Kimberly Weston wrote that the case against him was being dismissed “as part of an agreement to resolve a probation violation” in a separate case.
Weston wrote that the two counts of child abuse could be brought again.
According to the probation order filed on May 8 in the 2023 district court case, Padilla admitted to violating his probation, which was revoked and he was then reinstated on his previous conditions of probation, with credit for time he spent in jail following the child abuse arrest.
He must also go through a drug treatment program.
Before the child’s non-fatal overdose, he pleaded guilty to three counts of felon in possession of a firearm for three separate cases, on March 6; one in 2023 and one in 2021.
The child’s mother, Caitlan Sanchez, 29, waived a preliminary hearing and was bound over on charges of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm, a first-degree felony, and child abuse for placing a child in a dangerous situation, a third-degree felony, on April 2.
A pre-trial conference in her case is set for Sept. 2, after she was arraigned on April 15.
Española Police Officer Donivan Byers wrote in a criminal complaint for the arrest of both parents that he was sent at 10:23 p.m. March 25 to the Española Hospital for an infant’s overdose. The child was in the trauma room. Medical staff told him Padilla rushed into the emergency room with the infant, who responded to the application of naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan.
Padilla told officers that he gave the child two bottles of milk and then the child started falling asleep, this wasn’t normal and he rushed the child to the hospital, Byers wrote.
Sanchez told officers that she gave the child a bath, after he had been with Padilla, and he told her that he believed the child had been exposed to fentanyl. She allegedly told officers they both use fentanyl daily in their cars or the bathroom, Byers wrote.
It is the second overdose child abuse case for Sanchez, as she has a pending case from 2021 where she brought in her 8-month-old infant at the time for acting lethargic. A blood test showed cocaine in the child’s system and while she was at the hospital with the infant, it overdosed on opiates. The only people who had access to the infant in the hospital were medical staff and Sanchez.
The next hearing in that case is set for September.
In April, after Sanchez’s new arrest, District Judge Jason Lidyard revoked her release in the 2021 case, finding that she doesn’t appear for all court hearings and that she needed to complete an in-patient drug treatment program for at least 30 days before she could be released again.