Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Victor Apodaca looks back to his family after his sentencing Monday in Curry County.
CLOVIS - Victor Apodaca spoke through tears Monday while "begging for mercy" from Judge Drew Tatum in a sentencing hearing on charges from a short-lived jail escape this summer.
"I'm sorry for everything that I've put you all through," he said, addressing family members behind him in court before resuming his plea to the judge. "I'm asking for mercy. I've changed my life."
Through an agreement signed late last year, Apodaca pleaded guilty to each of his two fourth-degree felony charges stemming from the June 15, 2018 escape from the Curry County jail. That agreement left his sentence open-ended - ranging from eight years in the Department of Corrections to 19 - with Tatum ultimately ordering the state's recommendation of 16 years in prison and three years suspended. With good time credit Apodaca could serve only half of those 16 years in custody, but only after completing a 60-year term he recently started in Texas.
"I think you have regrets - I don't doubt that one bit - but I think you made poor decisions," Tatum said. "I think in your statement to me that you recognize that, that you've made some horrific mistakes, some tragic mistakes, and here you are today, a textbook example of taking all the wrong turns in just your 29 years on this earth. So that being said, I can't find that you have a whole lot of rehabilitative potential."
The lion's share of Apodaca's sentence in New Mexico emerges from the state's habitual offender statute, which mandates an eight-year enhancement for new felonies if there are three prior felony convictions in the past 10 years.
"It's designed that way to have a chilling effect on repeat offenders," Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Stover told The News. "The idea is to say to them that you must correct your behavior because the penalty is going to get worse and worse and worse."
Since Tatum ordered the sentences consecutive rather than concurrent, Apodaca will first have to serve the entire remainder of 60-year sentence in Texas, Stover explained. That sentence emerged after a June 29, 2017 conviction for two counts of aggravated assault on a peace officer there.
Defense attorney Brett Carter said Apodaca rejected a plea agreement on that case in Texas but was advised to accept the deal here, since he faced a sentence of approximately 50 years if the case went to trial.
Arguing for a shorter sentence in Monday's hearing, Carter said most of Apodaca's prior felony offenses were nonviolent and that he wasn't a lead actor in the plot last summer by which three jail inmates escaped with the assistance a detention officer and a man on the outside. He also pointed out that between Apodaca, Aaron Clark and Ricky Sena, his client alone "was able to eventually negotiate a surrender" when a SWAT team stood off with the trio in a Clovis house some four days after their escape.
Carter also pointed out that nobody was harmed during or following the summer escape, though Sena was charged with firing a gun when police brought them back into custody. Tatum said the element of fear during those days was real enough, however.
"When the escape occurred, the entire community and surrounding areas lived in fear of where you all were and what you might do while you were out," he told Apodaca.
Of five charged in connection with the June escapes, Apodaca is the first to be sentenced. Clark and Sena are currently scheduled for jury trials in February and March, respectively. Former detention officer Sarina Dodson is scheduled to plead next week to three felony charges for assisting their escape; Stover said the court will then decide her sentence, of which the upper limit is nine years in prison and $15,000 in fines.
Jon Hausmann, who was charged with harboring the three escapees, tentatively faces a five and a half year sentence through an agreement with the state that the court has yet to finalize, Stover added.
"You're never happy to see someone waste their life the way that Mr. Apodaca did," Stover said. "It's important for us, as a district attorney office, to say there will be consequences for your actions. You may not like them, but there's going to be consequences and we will hold you accountable."
Apodaca will be transported in the next week to continue serving his sentence in Texas.
"I love you, mom," he said on his way out of court. "I love you, sis ..."
