A Truchas woman is being held without bail after being been bound over on charges related to allegedly attacking police officers trying to arrest her.
Antonia Martinez, 43, is facing charges of battery on a peace officer, two counts of assault on a peace officer and one count of resisting an officer following a preliminary examination on Feb. 3.
During the hearing on Feb. 3, District Judge Jason Lidyard dropped one charge of assault on an officer and downgraded a charge of aggravated battery on an officer, to the battery charge, after Martinez allegedly bit a deputy who was trying to arrest her.
During that hearing, Lidyard also granted a prosecution motion to have Martinez held without bail pending trial. He cited a long list of accusations against Martinez, characterizing her criminal history as “deep.”
“Even if these cases were dismissed or have not resulted in a conviction, they show an extensive history of violence since 2017 to the present day,” Lidyard wrote. “There have been countless calls involving the Defendant in the last 2 years. They are continued reports of statements and conduct not connected to reality. They show a mental health issue, but that issue has crossed over into violence and criminal acts.”
Nothing other judges have done or ordered has stopped the alleged violent conduct, directed at family, neighbors and police officers, Lidyard wrote.
“The Defendant was on court-ordered conditions on countless new crimes throughout her history,” he wrote. “And the Defendant was on conditions of release during this new incident.”
Prosecutors, on Jan. 22, tried to have Martinez held without bail in a separate case for aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, child abuse and criminal damage to property, stemming from an October 2024 incident, the same day they asked her to be held without bail for the alleged deputy-biting incident.
Lidyard dismissed that burglary case without prejudice after prosecutors brought no witnesses to the hearing.
Arraignment in the biting case was set for Feb. 24.
The new incident
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Deputy Hansel Felix wrote in a criminal complaint for Martinez’s arrest on Jan. 20 that deputies were sent to her house following reports that she was outside, ripping wires from a neighbor’s electrical box, cutting their power.
“I knew from my previous encounters with Antonia she was violent and had several violent felony warrants,” he wrote.
When deputies first got there, Martinez refused to leave her house and was seen on the second floor, holding a green wine bottle. She told them they were from the devil, came down the stairs and tried to throw wine on them, Felix wrote.
One deputy tried to shoot her with a stun gun, but it had no effect, so one of them grabbed her and she bit one deputy’s forearm. They shackled her legs and put a spit mask on her. The deputy who was bit had teeth marks on his arm, as it began to bruise, Felix wrote.
A laundry list
Lidyard, in his order that Martinez be held without bail, listed a long series of allegations from other court cases. They included:
• Allegedly yelled at workers who came to repossess her vehicle, yelled at others to get guns and threatened to kill the repo workers in January 2017.
• Allegedly confronted “a neighbor about stealing firewood, threatened that neighbor with a machete, damaged a table, then stated that she would return with a gun” in January 2018.
• Allegedly tried to ram another vehicle with her own, led police on a pursuit, then punched kicked and bit officers in November 2020.
• Allegedly went to a neighbor’s house, then fought with the neighbor after being asked to leave in November 2021.
• Allegedly threatened a neighbor with a pipe and knife, used the pipe to break vehicle windows and used the knife to cut the plastic on a green house in January 2022.
• Allegedly attacked her father, pulled his beard, punched him and threw boiling water at him, then punched her mother; found a knife and threatened her father with it in January 2023.
• Allegedly accused a co-worker, who was giving her a ride, of doing something to her vehicle, locked the co-worker in her house and tried to batter the co-worker in April 2023.
• Allegedly tried to pull out the plexiglass divider in a police car in June 2023.
• Allegedly damaged a neighbor’s wall in September 2023.
• Allegedly started arguing with a neighbor, got a stick, hit the neighbor with the stick, got a knife, and stabbed the neighbor with the knife in December 2023.
• Allegedly got into an argument with her father and bit him and scratched his face in May 2024.
• Allegedly fought with her father’s teenage granddaughters and when her father tried to intervene, bit her father in October 2024.
Released in June
After Martinez allegedly stabbed her friend in the back of the neck, after beating her with a thorny stick in December 2023, she was arrested on a warrant in that case on May 31, 2024. Prosecutors filed to have her held as a danger to the community.
Martinez then agreed to waive a preliminary hearing in exchange for prosecutors dropping their request to have her held without bail in lieu of house arrest. A judge issued a bench warrant for her arrest in October 2024 after pre-trial services alleged that her ankle bracelet sent a tampered device alert and she never came into the pre-trial detention office to have it examined, claiming she could not find a ride.
While she was arrested in October after that bench warrant was issued, the bench warrant in the stabbing case was never served and she was released from the Rio Arriba County Detention Center without having a hearing.
District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer revoked Martinez’s release on Feb. 4, a day after Lidyard ordered her held without bail.