A Hernandez man was released on his own recognizance following a dangerousness hearing where prosecutors tried to have him held without bail following allegations that he beat up his girlfriend, cocked a pistol and told her and her family he was going to kill all of them.
District Judge Anastasia Martin ordered Izrael Hernandez, 21, released to house arrest, following an Oct. 2 hearing. The same day, he waived a preliminary hearing. He can’t have a gun, he will be on house arrest, he can’t talk to the alleged victim and he can’t drink, as some of the conditions of his release.
Hernandez appears to have waived a preliminary hearing without securing any concessions from prosecutors.
The order of release does not state what the judge’s findings were after the dangerousness hearing.
Hernandez is set to be arraigned in district court on Thursday (10/23) by District Judge T. Glenn Ellington on three counts of aggravated assault, two counts each of false imprisonment and battery and one count each of interference with communications and child abuse.
Rio Arriba Sheriff’s Deputy Patrick Martinez filed an arrest warrant for Hernandez on July 21 but he wasn’t arrested until Sept. 18.
Alleged Beating
Martinez wrote in the affidavit for an arrest warrant that the victim’s grandmother called police and he responded to the house on Birch Lane in Española. When he got there, the victim was lying on the couch, holding an ice pack to her left thigh and had bruises and bumps on her face.
In an interview with Martinez, the victim said the night before, they were fighting and in the morning, she went to take a shower and when she got into the bedroom, Hernandez asked, “So you don’t want to be with me?” he wrote.
She said she did not want to continue to be with him, as she walked over to a trash can to throw away a dirty diaper, Martinez wrote.
“He asked me again, ‘so you don’t wanna be with me?’ and I told him no. And then he hit me, in the face and then, on the head,’” Martinez wrote. “Then he asked me again if I wanted to be with him, I told him no. And then he kneed me in the leg.”
He allegedly hit her again in front of her mother and her mother told him to get out. He walked to the kitchen, asked the question again, and when she said she didn’t want to be with him, he said, “I’ll kill all of you,” he wrote.
As the mother tried to call police, Hernandez pulled out his gun, cocked it and told them to sit down and that he wasn’t letting his partner’s mother out of the house, but she was able to call her grandma.
“Then my grandma called you all, and then he was like, ‘please don’t press charges. This is gonna ruin my life,’ and I was like, ‘you just need to get out of here’ and he finally left,” Martinez wrote.
The deputy wrote that the victim was limping because of the beating and her face was temporarily disfigured and her mother told him that she is worried Hernandez’s violent behavior is going to escalate, ending in her daughter’s death.
Hernandez was charged in 2022 with battery against a household member and interference with communications, both misdemeanors, per documents attached to the motion for pre-trial detention. That case was dismissed after the reporting officer, Martin Vigil, failed to attend a pre-trial interview with the defense and his testimony was suppressed. The victim, the same one as in the new case, was not cooperating, according to the dismissal notice.