A Dulce man pleaded guilty to two counts of assault of an intimate partner by strangulation and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Chalmers Dedios, 32, pleaded guilty to the two charges on Feb. 3 in federal district court in Albuquerque.
He has been held without bail by federal authorities since Jan. 8, on the orders of Magistrate Judge Steven Yarbrough, but was held for nearly a year before that by tribal authorities, according to federal court records.
According to a plea deal, Dedios pleaded guilty to the two counts for a violent weekend-long attack on his girlfriend last February, where tribal investigators faulted their fellow tribal officers for allowing the abuse to continue for days after the victim had a friend call 911 the first time.
Per the plea deal, prosecutors will ask the judge to give Dedios some reduction in his sentence for 11 months he spent in tribal custody before the feds brought the case against him, and he was ordered held without bail.
According to the plea deal, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, 10 years for each of the two counts of assault, but a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office lists his maximum sentence at 10 years.
No sentencing hearing has been set. Dedios is a member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
The attacks
Jicarilla Apache Police Department Criminal Investigator Rome Wager wrote in an affidavit for a criminal complaint that the victim, referred to as B.C. and as Jane Doe, texted her friend to call the police on Feb. 13, 2024, Dedios was beating her and she disclosed past beatings and showed her injuries in the past.
The friend went outside after he called 911 and heard, from B.C.’s house, the words “stop hitting me” and “stop, it hurts,” Wager wrote. When officers arrived, they asked what was going on, as captured on body cameras worn by the officers.
“In the video, JANE DOE can be seen gently nodding her head and shifting her eyes toward DEDIOS, Wager wrote. “She appears to cry but does not say anything. Despite these visual cues, the officer does not intervene. He tells them to go to bed and leaves.“
A week later, on Feb. 19, officers saw the victim walking on the street with Dedios. Clothing covered her whole body despite warm weather, and she spoke in a “raspy voice.” They arrested him on unrelated charges and the victim told them she was covered in bruises caused by Dedios and he strangled her just a few days prior, on Feb. 10 14, Wager wrote.
She was later admitted to the intensive care unit in Farmington for a brain bleed, Wager wrote.
Dedios was charged for, and admitted to, twice strangling the victim.
“I admit that I got on top of Jane Doe and strangled her until she lost consciousness,” Dedios wrote in the plea deal. “At the time, I believed my act of strangling Jane to the point of unconsciousness had killed her because she did not appear to be breathing.”