Teen accused of sexual assault to remain on house arrest after second detention hearing

Sep. 23—A state district judge again denied prosecutors' request to order pretrial detention of a Capital High School student accused of sexually assaulting two teen girls.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer denied the request from prosecutors Monday after agreeing to reconsider her recent decision to release the teen, Alvaro Luna Huereca, on house arrest and electronic monitoring.

The District Attorney's Office had argued in a scathing statement on social media and in a subsequent court motion the judge had rushed an assistant district attorney through the first pretrial detention hearing and was endangering the community with her decision to allow his release. Sommer responded by scheduling a second hearing.

The District Attorney's Office plans to appeal Sommer's ruling, spokesperson Nathan Lederman wrote in an email after the hearing Monday.

Police allege Huereca, 18, attacked and sexually assaulted two teen girls near Capital High in August. He will remain on house arrest until his trial on the criminal charges, which have been pared down since Santa Fe police filed initial counts.

Huereca now faces three fourth-degree felony counts: two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and one count of false imprisonment, according to a court order. Two additional counts of criminal sexual contact were dropped from the case after prosecutors acknowledged a lack of probable cause.

Huereca appeared in court Monday, facing forward without making any expressions.

Prosecutors argued he should be kept in jail until his trial, alleging he admitted to prior incidents of sexual assault in an interview with a detective.

Santa Fe police Detective Ian Freeman testified Monday that when he questioned Huereca at the high school in August, the teen admitted to the attacks on classmates and said he had made videos of girls at the high school in recent years and touched a family member while she was sleeping.

Freeman began to tell the court about a journal he said he had found under Huereca's bed during a search of his home, but the judge ruled against the testimony. She said a timeline could not be established for Huereca's supposed journal entries.

Huereca's defense attorney, Dorie Biagianti Smith, said there was no evidence for several of the allegations made by prosecutors and police.

"This is not the type of case where a kid should be incarcerated," she said, arguing house arrest has been effective.

The case is one of a few in which District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has issued public statements criticizing Sommer's rulings. Sommer, meanwhile, has admonished prosecutors in several cases over missed filing deadlines and missteps in producing evidence.

Carmack-Altwies wrote in a statement after the first detention hearing for Huereca that Sommer had "hamstrung" prosecutors by limiting their time to present their case to five minutes. In the subsequent motion asking the judge to reconsider her ruling, prosecutors also argued Sommer had limited the use of a court interpreter.

Sommer said Monday, however, Assistant District Attorney Shelby Bradley was allowed two hours for both a preliminary hearing and a pretrial detention hearing in Huereca's case Sept. 13 — even more time for than he had requested — and his time was nearly up before he could present his case for detention.

"When all was said and done, you were the one who had 10 more minutes," Sommer said. "How do you come to the court in good faith and tell me that it was the court's fault that you presented your preventative detention in such little time?"

Regarding the court interpreter, Sommer said Bradley had emailed an interpreter directly instead of requesting one for the hearing in a court motion, as required. "You need to follow the rules," she said.

When another prosecutor questioned whether a bench warrant would be issued quickly if Huereca were to violate the terms of his house arrest in the middle of the night, Sommer interjected and disputed the attorney's claims about delays in the court's processes.

"They do call the judge at whatever time in the morning," Sommer said. "They do send the warrant and the affidavit. ... I want you all to know the pretrial services program doesn't sit and wait for Monday or anything like that. It's immediate."