New Mexico State Police officers arrested a Hernandez woman, with a little help from an Española City Police officer, after she allegedly tried to use another woman’s name to get out of being detained.
State Police Officer Jerome Martinez charged Crystal Holguin, 37, with concealing identity, forgery, driving on a license revoked for drunk driving, speeding and driver’s license not in possession, on Feb. 23.
Martinez wrote he was patrolling on Highway 68 when he clocked a car going 60 mph in the 45 mph zone. The driver identified herself as Nicole Martinez, 37. He ran her info through the system and the photo did not match the woman. He asked for her middle name and address, and she claimed she couldn’t remember either because of a brain injury from 2009.
“Despite my suspicions, I proceeded to issue her a citation under the name Nicole Martinez, which she signed before returning to her vehicle,” he wrote.
Martinez then had the male passenger get out and questioned him about the driver, whom he said he only knew as “Chris.” Martinez gave him a citation for not wearing a seatbelt and told Holguin she needed to give him her real name, he wrote.
He then contacted Española Police Officer David Jaramillo and sent him a photo of Holguin and asked if he could confirm her identity. Jaramillo identified Holguin and Martinez ran that information through the system. He found it matched and that her license was revoked for a prior drunk driving offense and that the revocation required her to be arrested if she was found driving, Martinez wrote.
He also found she had a failure to appear warrant on a shoplifting case. He then arrested her on the warrant and charges and had her car towed.
Rio Arriba Magistrate Judge Alexandra Naranjo ordered her released on her own recognizance, but ordered her to be on pre-trial supervision
A status conference is set for March 26.
Shoplifting case
That shoplifting case was bound over to district court on March 5, following a preliminary hearing.
In a criminal complaint for her arrest on Nov. 21, 2024, Española Police Officer Ralph Martinez wrote that he was sent to the Gamestop on North Riverside Drive for a woman who allegedly shoplifted the previous day and was back, grabbing items off the shelves and putting them in a backpack.
Ralph Martinez waited for her to leave and then accosted her in the parking lot and asked what was in her backpack and told her that “it would be in her best interest to be honest” with him and to hand over the items she took. She then handed him “the items,” which he did not list, walked her back to Gamestop and had the clerk ring up what she allegedly stole, which was over $500, he wrote.
Holguin allegedly gave Ralph Martinez a false name, Crystal Sisneros, then the name Jolene Martinez, before giving her real name. He arrested her on the fourth-degree felony shoplifting charge.
No new court date has been set.