An Española man is facing a charge of child abuse that appears to have been filed in August but not entered into the court record until Sept. 2, in a case where the mother of his child was arrested at the scene on child abuse charges.
Española Police Officer Andrew O’Hara initially arrested Rachel Montoya, 38, of Española, on Aug. 12, on three counts of child abuse, alleging that she allowed their children to live in filthy living conditions, with no food and too many people.
At the time, he wrote he was going to issue a summons to her husband Jeremy Montoya, for one count of child abuse, as he was not on the scene when O’Hara responded to the welfare check call.
At the time, O’Hara’s summons did not appear in the court record.
Jeremy Montoya, 35, was issued a summons Sept. 3, to appear in court on Monday, for his first appearance and arraignment.
The case did not appear in the online court record until Sept. 3, even though the charging documents filed by O’Hara are time-stamped as received on Aug. 13.
Jeremy Montoya is the father of the youngest child living at the house, O’Hara wrote.
Rachel Montoya was held without bail by Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid on Aug. 18, after she refused to come out of a house State Police surrounded, trying to arrest someone else on a warrant.
Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo released her on Aug. 27 on her own recognizance.
A status hearing is set for Wednesday (9/24) and the misdemeanor resisting arrest case, for refusing to come out of the house, is set for a bench trial on Thursday (9/25).
The House
O’Hara wrote that he was sent to the residence, initially, for a welfare check on children living in a house with a total of 15 people, where conditions were “unacceptable.”
Bags of “waste” were in the yard, there was “destroyed” machinery in the yard, and a dog was tied up and not able to move more than a single foot. O’Hara made no more mention of the dog in court documents and did not write if he called animal control to check on the animal, which he described as being crippled. O’Hara did not charge either Montoya with animal abuse.
Two of the older girls told the officer they were fine and two younger boys said the same, but O’Hara noted they looked dirty.
Rachel Montoya allegedly told him she knew the house was in bad shape, but they were trying to clean and there were seven adults and four children living there regularly with two other adults who stayed sometimes, he wrote.
When O’Hara and Officer Dustin Chavez walked through the house they noted: holes in the floor, empty kitchen cabinets, a sink filled with dirty dishes, a large container on the floor filled with dirty dishes, the only food in the refrigerator was covered in mold and “trash all over the floor throughout” with food smeared all over the walls, O’Hara wrote.
The bathroom was filled with dirty laundry “and could barely fit a person to the toilet” while the laundry room was filled with dirty laundry, he wrote.
There was no air conditioning, open alcohol containers were strewn throughout, there were flies everywhere, multiple electrical outlets were not properly covered and the water in the sink was “trickling out and did not build pressure,” he wrote.
2nd Case for
Jeremy Montoya
New Mexico State Police Officer Marcus Lopez issued a summons, Aug. 28, for Jeremy Montoya on a charge of receiving a stolen vehicle, for an incident on Aug. 27.
Lopez wrote that he was called by Santa Clara tribal police to assist them with a recovered, stolen ATV. Tribal police had seized the ATV from a couple riding it on tribal land. After it was towed, a Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office inspector found the vehicle identification numbers had been scratched off and the ignition was tampered with.
Officers were able to reconstruct the identification number and found it had been reported stolen a year earlier, but they couldn’t charge Jeremy Montoya, the rider, because he was not a tribal member, so Lopez brought the charges instead.
He is set to appear on the stolen vehicle charge in Española Magistrate Court on Sept. 29.