Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Managing editor
A Portales man entered a plea of not guilty to charges of first-degree criminal sexual penetration Friday morning during a district court arraignment.
Roy Brown, 28, was charged with second-degree criminal sexual penetration in June in connection to an alleged home invasion and rape of a Roosevelt County woman.
His case was brought before the grand jury again earlier this month with the Ninth Judicial District Attorney’s Office requesting the charges be increased to first-degree. The grand jury indicted on the new charges.
Brown appeared in court for the new charges Friday morning with his attorney, Craig Acorn, asking Judge Donna Mowrer to lower Brown’s $50,000 cash only bond.
Acorn told Mowrer that he cannot defend his client appropriately, because Roosevelt County Detention Center staff will not allow Brown to make long-distance phone calls to him in Albuquerque.
The D.A.’s office asked that the request be denied due to Brown having a prior history of violence.
The judge allowed the victim in the case to also give a statement to the court with the victim saying, “He should not be freed. I almost died. I am lucky that I can be here today. I would hate for this to happen to someone else.”
The judge denied the request to lower the bond but asked Acorn to talk to the administrator of RCDC to see if they can work out the telephone call issue.
Brown has a pre-trial conference on April 6 with a trial set for May 30-June 2.
In another case, a Portales man is once again in custody after being released at the end of August.
In August, Marvin Silva, 41, was sentenced to four years probation for voluntary manslaughter in a 2009 case after reaching a plea agreement with the D.A.’s office.
Silva appeared at a Friday morning arraignment in district court for probation violations.
According to Mowrer, the state filed a motion to revoke probation for Silva failing to report to the adult probation office, not completing a recovery program and refusing to submit to a drug test, among other violations. The documents for the motion could not be obtained by press time.
Silva has a probation violation hearing set for Dec. 15.
