An Española mother is being held without bail and is facing three counts of child abuse for allegedly allowing their children to live in filthy living conditions, with no food and too many people in the home.
Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid ordered Rachel Montoya, 38, be held without bail indefinitely after she was charged following the child abuse arrest for allegedly refusing to come out of a house for 20-30 minutes after police surrounded it, looking for someone else, even though they had no warrant.
Española City Police Officer Andrew O’Hara arrested Montoya on Aug. 12 and wrote he was going to issue a summons for the children’s father. However, that summons does not appear to have been filed according to a review of state court records.
Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo released Montoya on Aug. 14, two days after her arrest, with an order that she “avoid all contact with the alleged victim or anyone who may testify in the case,” which presumably meant her husband, as well as her children.
Madrid then ordered her held without bail on Aug. 18, after New Mexico State Police officers charged her with misdemeanor resisting arrest because she wouldn’t come out of a house, when officers were trying to find and arrest another person on outstanding warrants.
Welfare Check
O’Hara wrote that he was sent to the house initially, for a welfare check on four children living there, with the person calling it in saying that 15 people were living in the house and the conditions were “unacceptable.”
In the yard were bags of “waste,” machinery that was “destroyed” and a dog that was tied up and not able to move more than a single foot. O’Hara made no more mentions of the dog in court documents and did not write if he called animal control to check on the animal, which he described as being crippled. He did not file animal abuse charges.
He spoke to two older girls in the house who said they were fine and didn’t have any problems and then two younger boys who said they were fine, but appeared to be dirty. Montoya told O’Hara that they were working on cleaning the house and it’s a four to five bedroom house and there were seven adults and four children living there regularly, with two other adults who sometimes stayed there.
O’Hara and Officer Dustin Chavez walked through the house and saw holes in the floor, empty kitchen cabinets, a sink filled with dirty dishes, a large container on the floor filled with dirty dishes, the only food in the refrigerator was covered in mold and “trash all over the floor throughout” with food smeared all over the walls.
The bathroom was filled with dirty laundry “and could barely fit a person to the toilet” while the laundry room was filled with dirty laundry.
Resisting?
While Madrid ordered Montoya held without bail for allegedly violating the conditions of her release, which include “do not violate any federal, state, tribal or local laws,” it is unclear from State Police Officer Hunter Griego’s criminal complaint how legal her arrest was.
Griego had no court order to execute and Montoya was not fleeing and she was not in a car. It is not clear what lawful discharge of his duties Griego was doing that allowed him to arrest someone not suspected of a crime, for not coming out of a house.
The criminal complaint states Montoya “resisted” Griego “in the lawful performance” of his duties, but does not state what duty he was performing.
Griego wrote he went to the house on Ash Loop to arrest one man, whom he found standing out front, and was then told by the man being arrested that another man, also wanted on a warrant, was inside. Residents at the house told Griego that the man he was looking for wasn’t there, but he then “set a perimeter” around the house, along with three other State Police officers, demanding the occupants leave.
Madrid ordered Montoya released in the magistrate case on Aug. 18, and the same day, ordered her held without bail indefinitely in the child abuse case. A preliminary examination is set for later this week.
A bench trial is set for the resisting case on Sept. 25.