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Lawless Law in Bernalillo County New Mexico

In late April 2006 I received a letter from an, unknown to me, attorney who represents people who have been charged with domestic violence. After some inquiries I discovered that a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Deputy, on the behest of my soon to be ex- wife, had charged me with the violation of a restraining order and assault on a household member. The arraignment date was only a few days away; I never received a subpoena and was forced to quickly find a criminal defense attorney. At the arraignment, the judge threw out the charge of violating a restraining order due to the fact that none ever existed. I was released on my own recognizance and had several restrictions placed on me. My freedom to travel outside the state was taken away for several weeks until when the second charge was withdrawn by the assistant DA on the basis of, and I quote, “no factual evidence”. These trumped up charges cost several thousand dollars to defend myself against right at a time that my financial situation was weakened by an ongoing divorce. Not to mention the undo stress, damage to my reputation, and justifiable loss of respect/heightened fear for law enforcement officials. And I feel were a failure of the BCSO’s duty to protect the innocent and constitutionally questionable. As time went on, my original criminal defense attorney requested that I allow him to represent me in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the BCSO. That case was eventually withdrawn due to the fact that I was never actually physically arrested even though we had expected me to be at any time under the requirements of NM Statute 40-13-6D. We did learn that the deputy in question, Evangeline Martinez, at the time of her bringing the charges against me, was herself facing domestic violence charges, among others. We even discovered that she had injected her own issues into her contrived complaint against me by using the very date of her own lawless activities in the early morning hours of January 1st 2006. We also discovered that she had to be escorted from her boyfriend’s workplace, a Bernalillo county firehouse, on several occasions before that time. The upper management of BCSO knew Deputy Martinez was on a course of self-destruction months before her interaction with my soon to be ex-wife. Martinez was clearly unfit for duty. Deputy Martinez was, at the time, employed by the BCSO as a school resource officer (SRO). Her authority, the way I understand it, did not entail the bringing of these types of criminal charges and, at the time, she surely should not have had any involvement in domestic violence issues. I question that she even had the proper DV training as required under NM Statute 40-13-1.1. It is obvious to me, due to the charge listed in the court complaint of violating a restraining order being NM Statute 40-13-6C that she was simply carrying out a mindless grudge. Statue 40-13-6C has nothing to do with violating a restraining order; it has to do with time limits, extensions, and court approved consent agreements. It is obvious her superiors did no investigation as required under NM Statute 29-1-1 as they would have corrected this and/or utilized the database required under NM Statute 40-13-6B. If they had done their duty according to 29-1-1, they would have found that no restraining order existed and rightfully would have charged my ex-wife with filing false police reports (my ex-wife is a highly trained paralegal, she knew exactly what she was doing with her lies, and I suspect she and the deputy knew each other). It is interesting that Martinez and her superiors did follow NM Statute 40-13-6H, i.e. by filing the second bogus charge, also showing a willing violation of 29-1-1, ignoring the 40-13-6B databases, and violating the their own rules as to not being witness to that alleged misdemeanor. An even more barefaced violation of 29-1-1 by Martinez and the management at BCSO is the fact that the complaint contained a copy of the customary temporary domestic order that was tied to the pending divorce. If Martinez or her superiors had simply read what was right in front of them, and I quote the second sentence, “This is NOT AN ORDER OF PROTECTION under federal or state law”; again, the charges would have never been filed: numerous opportunities, numerous failures. In April 2008 BCSO continued to ignore its duties under 29-1-1 when I was refused the filing of my complaint against my ex-wife for having filed false police reports, among other violations. The following day, I had to force the issue of my being allowed to file a complaint and was told that nothing would be done with it. I suspect that this had to do with the now disgraced Deputy Evangeline Martinez. By this time, she had been fired from the BCSO after illegal prescription drugs, with the name of another disgraced/fired BCSO deputy on them, where found in her desk at the school where she worked while she was on forced leave as she was being investigated concerning her involvement in the mysterious and questionable death of her new boyfriend. I was told that I could file the charges against my ex-wife with the court myself. However, I was not told I would have to prosecute them myself. I did file the charges and they were later dismissed without prejudice due to the lack of prosecution. My complaint was never investigated, as promised by the BCSO, even though they are required to do so under 29-1-1. Most if not all of these records can be found in the case files at the Bernalillo Metropolitan Court (CR754108, DV60306, and DV171906). I understand that Martinez is now working in the Corrales police department and has yet to be charged with committing a felony in relationship to her having illegal drugs in a public school. I suspect the BCSO has ignored the law once again to limit the negative publicity. I have friends in Corrales and favorite businesses there that I no longer visit. This unstable person with a highly questionable record is now working just a few miles from my home, once again carrying a badge and a gun. I live every day with an increased sense of danger to my safety and consciously avoid Corrales. I recently took these facts to the BCSO internal affairs unit and was told that most likely nothing would be done due to their policy of not investigating incidents that had occurred over 90 days prior. Unfortunately, this policy seems to be a tightly held secret. As when the sergeant asked me, why did you wait so long to do this? My response was, well if I knew about your policy I would have done it sooner. I added, I’ve been waiting for you to correct this and finally decided it wasn’t going to happen, so here I am. When I first contacted them the sergeant in charge said he had no knowledge of NM Statute 29-1-1. On the day of our interview the same sergeant admitted that they get 29-1-1 complaints all the time. He went on to defend the BCSO by saying that they have many laws and policies to abide by and that investigations don’t always have the outcome one might be looking for. He didn’t seem to get what I was saying. There was no investigation in either of the situations I was complaining about. Again, I had to point out that in the original incident in 2006 the BCSO had the information right in front of their faces and they didn’t read it. If they had, none of this would have happened. In the second incident, again, no investigation was done even after I had filed several violations of the law, including a felony, with the criminal court smack dab in the middle of their jurisdiction. And that 29-1-1 is the law of the land making the foundation on which law enforcement officials are to conduct themselves. It appears that there are many problems with the understanding of the law, enforcement of the law, management, and professionalism within the BCSO. I am not attempting to find any resolution as to what I feel the wrongs the BCSO has perpetrated against me. My concerns are that if these facts are not brought to the attention of someone with the authority to weed out the incompetents that the people of Bernalillo County, as a whole, will be rightly subjected to unnecessary and costly litigation. Not to mention that anyone, all the people no matter where they live, are in jeopardy of having the same thing happen to them. Sincerely, Mr. Charles R. Arasim

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by susan raterman
Entered on:

So now this police officer, Evangeline Martinez, gets a Red Cross Hero's award!   Suspected in one of my classmate's death, put on suspension, fired for controlled substances in her workplace desk, charged in a previous domestic violence case,  hired by Corrales police department.  Now she's a hero and got a award.  RIP Gary!   

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