The Española Police officer who allegedly battered two owners of an Española business is being investigated by the Law Enforcement Academy Board, according to Board director Arthur Ortiz.
Eugene Rodella, 40, of Hernandez, and his brother Gabriel Rodella, 22, allegedly beat up two owners of Dragon’s Lair Hookah Lounge and Defiant Artists Tattoo Shop located in the Fairview strip mall in Española Oct. 7, according to a State Police report. The Rodellas and a third unidentified man allegedly entered the shop, damaged store property and sent tattoo artist Marlo Gray and shop co-owner Chris Whitsell to the hospital with various injuries, according to State Police. Eugene Rodella specifically is alleged to have punched Gray on the side of the head and continued to hit him while Gabriel Rodella choked him.
The Rodellas told the Dragon’s Lair shop owners they were angry about what happened at the store the previous night, when their nephew T.J. Rodella stopped by while he was intoxicated and got in a fight with security guard John Roybal. When Española Police Det. Bryan Martinez, who happened to be at the shop getting tattooed Oct. 7, asked Eugene Rodella what he was doing, he allegedly responded, “You don’t (expletive) with my familia,” according to the report.
T.J. Rodella is the son of former State Police sergeant and current Rio Arriba County sheriff candidate Tommy Rodella and State Rep. Debbie Rodella (D-La Mesilla).
Eugene Rodella, who is on paid administrative leave from Española Police, was sent a notice of contemplated action Oct. 22 by the Law Enforcement Academy Board, Ortiz said. Once Ortiz is notified that Rodella received that notice, Rodella has seven days to respond and request an informal hearing with members of the board.
Rodella is no stranger to the Board’s procedure for disciplining wayward officers. He is currently on probation until March 2010 after the Board investigated allegations he kicked and punched his wife in front of their 4-year old daughter Feb. 23, 2008, according to reports and Ortiz. Rodella’s law enforcement certification was suspended for one month in March of this year, and the terms of his probation include the requirement “not to get in any incidents like (the Dragon’s Lair fight),” Ortiz noted. If the Board finds that Rodella violated the law during his probation, they will take administrative action against him, including but not limited to revocation or suspension of his certification, Ortiz said. If Rodella ends up convicted of a crime for the Dragon’s Lair incident, that would make it easier for the Board to revoke his certification, Ortiz said.
“Being that he’s on probation isn’t going to be helpful to him either,” Ortiz said. “So the Board may impose additional sanctions, and they may revoke him.”
Ortiz also noted that although Rodella was charged with DUI in 1999, his employer at the time, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s department, never notified the Board. They did terminate him four months after that case was adjudicated, Ortiz said. The Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court database states Rodella was found guilty, but also that the case was dismissed. A records request to see the court file’s contents was not fulfilled by Tuesday. Eugene Rodella is also a former State Police officer. A request to see his file had not been fulfilled as of Tuesday.
“One of the things I’m trying to do is make sure these agencies (realize that officers) still hold their license just because they terminate them or allow them to resign,” Ortiz said. “I’ve been aggressive in trying to educate the agencies that you still have to report any of that misconduct to us.”
Santa Fe County employees removed all reference to the terms of Rodella’s departure from his file before the SUN inspected it earlier this year.
Depending on whether Rodella responds to the notice of contemplated action, he may have a hearing at the Board’s Dec. 8 meeting in Albuquerque, Ortiz said.
State Police reports list Eugene and Gabriel Rodella as suspects for the crimes of battery, trespassing, criminal damage to property and retaliation against a witness, but didn’t arrest anyone in connection with the incident. Instead the case has been forwarded to the District Attorney’s office.
Assistant District Attorney Anthony Rivera said Tuesday that the Rodella case has been assigned to him, but he hasn’t actually received it yet. He and another attorney will be handling the case, Rivera said. Rivera said he wasn’t in a position to explain why charges haven’t been brought.
“All I can tell you is in my little corner of the operation, the only way I can work on the case is when I physically have it in my hands,” Rivera said. “Until then I can’t comment on it or do anything on it.”
Eugene Rodella has not responded to calls for comment.
Burglary
Meanwhile, the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department recently recommended one of the Dragon’s Lair owners and all of his family get restraining orders against the Rodellas after the house of co-owner Ryan Barrera’s mother, Shirley Montoya, was ransacked, according to Montoya and deputy Paul Valdez.
Montoya returned to her Chili home the afternoon of Oct. 23 to a nightmare.
“The whole house was turned upside down,” Valdez said. “You could barely walk through the house.”
A 65-inch flat-screen TV was not only knocked over, but smashed across the room from where it had been set, Valdez said. Clothes were taken out of closets and thrown all over, and pictures were pulled off the walls.
“My husband goes, ‘What the heck?,’ not exactly in those nice words, if you know what I mean,” Montoya said.
Montoya was devastated to discover her jewelry was stolen, because it had been passed down in the family for generations. The suspect or suspects parked on a hill behind the house and entered through a window during a two-hour time period when Montoya and her husband were gone, according to Valdez and Barrera.
“Somebody had to have been eyeing my mom’s house because my parents hardly ever leave,” Barrera said.
Montoya’s address is listed on Barrera’s driver’s license — the one police ran through 911 dispatch when they took reports on the Dragon’s Lair incident, he said. He believes the suspects broke into Montoya’s house in an effort to retaliate against him.
When Valdez learned of Montoya’s relationship to Barrera Monday morning, he turned the case over to Department Det. Adam Archuleta for a more thorough investigation and went back to the house to lift fingerprints, he said. But he said he doesn’t know whether the break-in is related to the Dragon’s Lair incident.
“I don’t know; I’d only be guessing,” Valdez said. “The only thing that kind of worries me is it appears to be more criminal damage than an actual burglary. It seems like whoever went in there went in there with the intention of destroying the inside of the house, basically trashing the house … Usually in a burglary you won’t see pictures knocked off walls and stuff like that.”
Deena Beard, the Albuquerque lawyer representing Barrera and three other victims in the Dragon’s Lair incident, said it’s too early to come to any conclusions about a connection between the Dragon’s Lair incident and the break-in.
Valdez suggested the restraining order to Montoya because she believes the break-in is connected to the Dragon’s Lair incident and expressed fear for her and her family’s safety, both said. Montoya is now afraid to leave her home and concerned her son will be physically harmed.
“If it was against me they should’ve come to me instead of taking it out on an innocent woman like my mom,” Barrera said.