A Rio Arriba grand jury indicted an Alcalde man who allegedly ran over his neighbor with an all-terrain vehicle.
Andrew Garduño, 42, was indicted on April 1, on charges of great bodily injury by vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident causing great bodily harm, following the Dec. 20 incident.
District Judge Anastasia Martin ordered Garduño to be released on his personal recognizance after he was arraigned on April 13. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Martinez originally charged Garduño with the same charges in a summons dated Dec. 22. However, the summons was not stamped as received by the magistrate court until Jan. 9.
Prosecutors subsequently dismissed the charges on March 25, when the case was set for a preliminary hearing, before bringing the grand jury indictment a week later.
Martinez wrote that the victim, who is Garduño’s neighbor, and Garduño, had been feuding over his use of the ATV as well as his children’s use of the ATV, including her complaints that the children would ride it without wearing helmets.
When the call of a crash into Mary Ann Maestas came in, deputies saw tire marks on her body and she later told Martinez that she had fractured her tibia (shin bone), scapula (shoulder blade) and ribs, Martinez wrote.
While Garduño initially allegedly fled the scene, he came back and spoke to Martinez and told him that he was riding his ATV when his neighbor flipped him off and said Maestas’s older male friend stepped in front of his ATV and hit him in the face, at which point he lost control, it rolled forward and ran over Maestas, because it was still in gear, Martinez wrote.
The day of the incident, Maestas said Garduño “appeared and began yelling profanities at her,” then got on the ATV and drove it toward her property. He then dismounted and pushed it toward her and it hit her, caused her to fall, and then landed on her body and she was unable to move it off of her, he wrote.