Year in review: 2018 busy year for courts, law enforcement

The courts and jails were busy in 2018 in eastern New Mexico, and the trial docket indicates 2019 will be quite busy as well.

Here is a rundown of some of the more notable area crimes and punishment from last year.

• In what prosecutors termed a "huge step" in nearly a year-and-a-half of adjudication, teenager Nathaniel Jouett was ordered to be sentenced as an adult for the 2017 library shooting.

Jouett pleaded guilty in October to nearly three dozen felony charges stemming from the Aug. 28, 2017, shooting at the Clovis-Carver Public Library. The shooting killed staff members Wanda Walters and Krissie Carter and injured four others.

His sentencing hearing is scheduled for February.

• The Curry County Adult Detention Center had a pair of escapes, with both resolved within a few days.

Three men - Victor Apodaca, Aaron Clark and Ricky Sena - escaped June 15, and were brought back into custody four days later following a standoff with police.

A former detention center officer accused of helping the men escape, Sarina Dodson, is scheduled for a plea conference later this month.

Kaitlyn Martinez-Arington, 26, escaped the jail by pretending to make a phone call, then following a health care employee out a door and down a hallway to the exit.

She was found the next day in an attic near Cameo Elementary School.

• A Clovis man was killed in an October officer-involved shooting, with an independent panel still not revealing any decision on whether the officer will face criminal charges.

Officer Brent Aguilar returned to active duty about a week after the Oct. 8 incident, where car thief suspect Aaron Chavez was killed near the intersection of Brady and Prince Streets.

A wrongful death lawsuit filed by Chavez' father is in progress.

The New Mexico District Attorney's Association did not expect to make a decision before the new year. An independent panel of district attorneys received materials on the case in November, but are weighing four separate shooting cases.

The New Mexico Department of Public Safety has denied multiple public records requests from The News, arguing "law enforcement records that reveal confidential sources, methods, information or individuals accused but not charged with a crime" are exempt from public review.

• A former operator of a walk-in clinic was sentenced to five years supervised probation for writing hundreds of fraudulent prescriptions.

Annette Ternes, also lost her nursing license after pleading guilty to forgery and practicing medicine without a license. Only a handful of the prescriptions were for controlled substances and none led to patient injury.

• Three young men stationed at Cannon Air Force Base were accused of raping a colleague at a house party in Clovis,

Thomas Newton, Isaiah Edley and Rahman Buchanan are scheduled for trial Feb. 19-22 following continuances filed in October. All three are charged with second-degree criminal sexual penetration.

• A trial is eyed for late January and early February for a mother and daughter accused of leaving two young girls in a hot car in July 2017.

Mary and Sandi Taylor have a motion hearing scheduled in January on charges stemming from the death of 22-month-old Maliyah Jones and injuries to Aubrianna Loya, then 2.

Each face up to 36 years in prison. They will be tried together, but can be convicted or acquitted separately.

• A Portales woman was killed in April, with her accused killer facing trial this May.

Erika Zomorano was found in a home on the 900 block of East Second Street.

Gerardo Marquez faces second-degree murder charges.

• A Portales man accused of second-degree murder faces an April trial for the April shooting death of Dylan McCay.

Angel Loya pleaded not guilty to the charges stemming from an argument. The two had dated each other's ex-girlfriends and had threatened each other, according to officer testimony in a May hearing.

• A man set to be booked in the Curry detention center snuck in a gun, and shot himself following a standoff with police and detention officers, according to court records.

Wesley Flores was expected to take nearly a year to recover from the shot. He has not yet been charged in connection to the standoff.

He was originally brought into the jail on a failure to appear warrant.

• A former track and field coach at Clovis Christian schools pleaded no contest to criminal sexual communication with a former female athlete.

Scott Fly was given a deferred sentence of 18 months probation, along with a 10-year period of registration as a sex offender.

He apologized to Judge Drew Tatum for sending lewd images to the 14-year-old while employed as an assistant track coach.

• The state Attorney General's office investigated Roosevelt County rancher Greg Smith for accusations of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering during his time leading the Miss New Mexico Scholarship Organization.

A representative with the AG's office did not answer a question this week as to whether charges were filed against Smith, whom contestants say overcharged for services and withheld funds and payments.

• In what Judge Fred Van Soelen called the most horrific crime he'd seen in 20 years in the district, Lorenzo Martinez was sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing death of Mary Neal.

Martinez was convicted of first-degree murder and third-degree criminal sexual penetration for stabbing Neal to death and then assaulting her body before calling police to report his own crimes.

• A Clovis man was sentenced to 46 years in prison in July for charges that included kidnapping and battery.

Joshua Romero, was convicted of kidnapping, intimidation of a witness and two counts of aggravated battery from a July 2016 incident where he was accused of battering an estranged girlfriend for over an hour and choking her to unconsciousness several times using his hands and a computer power cable.

• A Clovis man faces up to 10 years in prison following a conviction on his 10th impaired driving charge.

Randall Pruit, 55, was convicted of second-degree felony DWI and two petty misdemeanors in connection to a nighttime crash into his neighbor's car on New Year's Eve 2017.

He was acquitted of an October 2017 charged, based on a failure to search Pruit's blood.

The charges were the first since 2009 for Pruit.

• A former Cannon Air Force Base airman was charged with computer fraud during his time at the base.

Michael Weber, 22, of Alamogordo, is accused of placing a "spam bot" on his supervisor's government-issued cell phone, with the intent to cause damage to the phone.

He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Weber left the Air Force in July, and was stationed at Cannon for more than two years.

• A former grocery store employee was sentenced to five years supervised probation after pleading to 10 counts of embezzlement across a two-year period.

Rosa Davis, 58, was initially charged with 150 counts totaling nearly $12,000. Davis, who said she had an ill parent at the time, was said to use a variety of refunds and money orders to embezzle the money.

• Portales attorney Eric Dixon's law license was suspended for nine months in November.

Roosevelt County attorney Randy Knudson filed a claim against Dixon for listing the wrong plaintiff on a civil lawsuit against the county and never correcting the error.

• A pair of former Motor Vehicle Department employees were convicted of embezzling thousands from customers.

Alisha Segura was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution during the time. Tianna Gallegos was sentenced to four years and six months in jail, suspended in favor of supervised probation, with nearly $9,200 in restitution owed.

The pair were accused of voiding transactions at the De Baca County MVD for 2015 and 2016 and pocketing the money.