Ten dollars wasn’t enough hush money Aug. 23 to keep Rio Arriba County Jail guards Guillermo Diaz and Jose Leyba from turning in career criminal Julian Montoya when they found heroin in his cell, according to State Police.
Montoya, 23, of Española, raised the guards’ suspicions by acting lethargic and not talking to guards over the weekend, State Police officer Lance Peper said Monday. A cell search turned up a syringe, a lighter and Q-tip cotton swabs containing a brown tar-like substance, Jail Administrator Bidal Candelaria said. Peper said the substance tested positive for heroin.
Jail supervisors conducted a strip-seach of Montoya, discovering $40 cash under the insole of his shoe, Peper said.
“(Montoya) asked them if they would take $10 each and drop the issue,” Candelaria said.
Instead, the guards called State Police, and Montoya was charged with two counts of bribing a public official in addition to bringing contraband into a place of imprisonment, possession of paraphernalia and possession of heroin, Peper said.
Montoya committed a similar crime last June, according to an online court records database, when he was charged again with bringing contraband into a place of imprisonment, possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance. In fact, Montoya pleaded guilty to all the charges except marijuana possession exactly one year before he got caught this time, the database states.
Montoya, who goes by the alias of “Shorty,” was arrested last December in a Region III Drug Task Force raid on his Calle de Pajarito home which turned up heroin, Vicodin, Valium, Loratabs, the opioid replacement drug Suboxone, marijuana and a stolen computer, court documents state. Montoya’s neighbors said at the time they were relieved that “Shorty” was finally arrested.
After pleading guilty to controlled substance possession and receiving stolen property for that case in March, Montoya was sentenced to three years of probation, court documents state.
Montoya recently violated that probation by picking up a paraphernalia possession charge in June and was jailed, documents state.
Candelaria said when inmates are being processed into the facility, they cannot be strip-searched without probable cause.