Nine days after a judge dismissed four of her lawsuits against the SUN and SUN news editor Kevin Bersett, former SUN reporter Nancy Lewis was picked up on out of state warrants and is being held on no bond pending extradition proceedings, court documents state.
Lewis, 65, is wanted in Dekalb County, Ga., for failure to appear on charges of aggravated stalking and making terroristic threats, documents state. In June 2007, Lewis allegedly threatened to kill her son-in-law, Todd Smallwood of Atlanta, Ga., and left a message on his cell phone that she would “blow off (Smallwood’s) balls.”
The alleged incident occurred in violation of a 12-month order of protection issued by the Dekalb County Superior Court, requiring that Lewis stay at least 100 yards away from Smallwood at all times, court documents state.
Although the warrants were issued in July 2007 after Lewis failed to appear at hearings related to the charges, local law enforcement didn’t contact Georgia authorities about Lewis until Sept. 22, 2008. According to court documents and dispatch logs, Valley Superette owners called police that day when Lewis, whom they allege owes them money, showed up in their store.
Lewis told Española Police officer Jeremy Apodaca she thought she had an arrest warrant in Georgia, according to a probable cause statement, and a national crime database confirmed she had two. Georgia authorities agreed to extradite Lewis back to that state, documents state.
The extradition will interfere with Lewis’ ability to pursue several civil actions she has filed in state District Court over the past year, against the state Human Services department and her former employers at Northern New Mexico College, to name just two. Lewis filed a complaint for a semester’s salary against the College after claiming she was erroneously led to believe she would be teaching in the fall. Lewis is also facing 11 counts under the state Worthless Check Act in Rio Arriba and Santa Fe Magistrate Courts, according to an online court records database. The database states she pleaded guilty to one count under the same Act earlier this year.
During a seven-hour hearing Sept. 15, Judge Timothy Garcia dismissed four lawsuits Lewis filed against the SUN and Bersett, in which she claimed, among other things, that the SUN was holding employees hostage. In one motion Lewis, who represented herself, filed before the hearing, she requested to bring a dog, “Brown Dog,” to the hearing, claiming the animal would defend her with its “bone and meat crunching fangs.”
Commenting on a ruling to expand existing restraining orders protecting Bersett and all other SUN employees from Lewis, Garcia admonished Lewis for “extremely threatening” behavior toward the SUN.