Prosecutors have dismissed charges brought by New Mexico State Police officers against an Española man, arrested on a charge of felon in possession of a firearm.
They dismissed the charge without prejudice against Armando Martinez, 32, on Nov. 10, in a boilerplate notice that stated charges could be brought again and they could be presented to a grand jury.
State Police Officer Marcus Lopez charged Martinez because he was a passenger in a car that had a muzzle-loaded rifle in the back that belonged to another man who was driving the vehicle.
Officers initially stopped two vehicles owned by Jeremy Trujillo because one had no license plate and the other had an expired registration; the two cars were traveling together.
Trujillo told officers that the .50-caliber muzzle loader was in the back of a Honda CRV and the two men in the vehicle were aware of it.
The driver of the Honda was wanted on an arrest warrant and Lopez arrested him.
When he ran Martinez’s information, it came back that he was currently on probation. Lopez contacted Martinez’s probation officer, who then drafted his own arrest and hold order for Martinez, Lopez wrote.
“Jeremy stated the people who were driving the vehicle are drug users and did not want to get in trouble for any drugs which may be in the vehicle,” he wrote.
Prosecutors filed a notice on Oct. 15, stating that they would not prosecute the alleged probation violation that Martinez’s probation officer filed against him.
He was on probation in a case where he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempt to commit possession of a controlled substance, with a sentence of a year of supervised probation.
Martinez pleaded no contest to armed robbery in 2014 and per the plea agreement in that case, he was convicted of attempted burglary in 2011 for an incident five years earlier in 2006.