A Los Alamos Police detective has charged an Española man for allegedly stealing money from the bank accounts of members, while he was an employee, to pay for suspected gambling.
Detective Cindy Garcia filed a criminal complaint charging Steve Archuleta Jr., 55, with fraudulent use of a credit card by fraudulent representation in May. A summons was issued later that month and he was arraigned on June 9.
Garcia wrote in the criminal complaint she started working the case on March 12 after one of the alleged victims, Regina Mertz, of Florida, emailed the Los Alamos police chief about the alleged fraud at the Los Alamos Schools Credit Union.
Mertz provided Garcia with bank statements that showed $3,468 had been withdrawn at the Santa Claran Casino, the Ohkay Casino and the Tesuque Casino between December 2024 and February, she wrote.
Garcia then went to the credit union, where she spoke to Josh Stinger, the chief operations officer. He told her that Archuleta, an employee at the time, made a transfer of $1,000 out of her account on Dec. 20, 2024. The credit union was having “technical issues” so when he was asked what happened, he said the “machine was acting up, the machine spit out $1,000.00,” Garcia wrote.
Stinger told Garcia that Archuleta said he put the $1,000 in his deposit box and by the end of the following week, the money was back in Mertz’s account, she wrote.
Mertz was also mailed a debit card for another of her accounts, but it was sent to her former Los Alamos address and returned to sender. However, it was still activated on Dec. 16, via a credit union phone number, which made Stinger think Archuleta was the one who did it, she wrote.
Stinger found another suspicious transaction of $1,000 from another member’s account into Mertz’s account and said Archuleta was tasked with calling the other member to verify the transaction. When he listened to the recorded call, he found Archuleta never asked about it, Garcia wrote.
By March 11, employees estimated the total loss to be $4,468 between multiple accounts, deactivated Archuleta’s key card and later fired him. Garcia called Archuleta and he denied transferring money between the accounts and said he didn’t know why he was fired, but was given a reason of “honesty,” she wrote.
A status conference is set for early July.
A month earlier, Garcia filed charges in Los Alamos Magistrate Court against Archuleta, with a nearly identical criminal complaint narrative, charging him with fraudulent use of a credit card, fraud under $2,500, fraudulent taking of a credit card and money laundering. He waived a preliminary hearing and was bound over on the four charges on May 14 in Los Alamos District Court. A pre-trial conference is set for Sept. 2.
Around the same time in May that the Rio Arriba charges were filed, Garcia filed a charge of fraudulent use of an illegally obtained credit card in Santa Fe Magistrate Court. A preliminary examination in that case is set for early August. The narrative in that case is nearly identical to the same documents filed in Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties.