A woman who crashed her car with two passengers, while drunk, has pleaded down to drunk driving, while prosecutors dropped a charge of child abuse against her passenger.
Esperanza San Juan, 22, of Dixon, pleaded guilty on Dec. 10 to a single count of first-offense drunk driving, with a deferred sentence and 364 days of probation. Prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of child abuse brought against her because her friend and the friend’s child were in the car at the time.
San Juan crashed her car on Oct. 14 on State Road 68, but the circumstances of the crash were not included in court documents. Officers initially charged her with drunk driving and child abuse.
Prosecutors dismissed a child abuse charge against her passenger, Taliyah Bird, 22, of Santa Cruz, on Nov. 10. She was in the car with her infant child when it crashed. The charges were dismissed without prejudice in a boilerplate notice, stating it was “pending further investigation.”
Court documents to charge the women submitted by Rio Arriba Deputy Daniel Martinez, were incomplete and the reason for charging Bird and San Juan with child abuse stated they placed the child in a situation that may endanger the child’s health, “to wit: (describe situation briefly).”
Martinez wrote in court documents he was called to a crash on State Road 68 and saw a white sedan with front-end damage.
There, San Juan admitted to driving. He noted her bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, a smell of alcohol coming from her and an open yellow box with a Twisted Tea logo in the car. Further away, Bird was holding her crying infant.
San Juan denied drinking, then admitted drinking, and he arrested her, then had her conduct a series of field-sobriety tests, which he deemed her as having failed. Later, at the sheriff’s office, she blew a 0.15, indicating her blood-alcohol level, which was nearly twice the presumptive limit of 0.08, Martinez wrote.
He did not describe how the crash happened, what the sedan crashed into, or who reported it.
Deputy Hansel Felix then arrested Bird on the child abuse charge, despite not filling out how, specifically, she put the child in a dangerous situation.
Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid arraigned Bird, but whether he found probable cause to support the charge is unclear, as no probable cause finding was entered into the court record.