Teenager accused of sexual abuse remains under house arrest after second detention hearing

September 23 – A state district judge again denied prosecutors’ requests to remand a Capital High School student accused of sexually abusing two young girls.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer denied prosecutors’ request Monday after agreeing to reconsider her recent decision to place teenager Alvaro Luna Huereca under house arrest and electronic monitoring.

Prosecutors had argued in a scathing social media statement and subsequent court filing that the judge rushed an assistant prosecutor through the first detention hearing and was endangering the community with her decision to allow his release. Sommer responded by scheduling a second hearing.

The prosecution intends to appeal Sommer’s verdict, spokesman Nathan Lederman wrote in an email after the hearing on Monday.

Police allege Huereca, 18, attacked and sexually assaulted two teenagers near Capital High in August. He will remain under house arrest until his trial on the charge, which has been reduced since Santa Fe police first filed charges.

Huereca is now facing three fourth-degree charges: two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and one count of false imprisonment, according to a court ruling. Two other counts of sexual abuse were removed from the case after prosecutors no longer found there was sufficient evidence to support the charge.

Huereca appeared in court on Monday, his eyes fixed on the front line and his expression blank.

Prosecutors argued that he should remain in prison until his trial because he had admitted to previous cases of sexual harassment in a conversation with a detective.

Santa Fe Police Detective Ian Freeman testified Monday that when Huereca was questioned at the high school in August, he admitted to the attacks on classmates and said he had taken videos of girls at the high school in recent years and touched a family member in her sleep.

Freeman began telling the court about a diary he claimed to have found under Huereca’s bed during a search of his home, but the judge rejected that testimony, saying that no chronological connection could be established between Huereca’s alleged diary 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 a case where you should lock up a child,” she said, arguing that house arrest has proven effective.

The case is one of a few in which District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has publicly criticized Sommer’s rulings. Sommer, meanwhile, has reprimanded prosecutors in several cases for missing filing deadlines and errors in presenting evidence.

Carmack-Altwies wrote in a statement after Huereca’s first remand that Sommer had “obstructed” prosecutors by giving them only five minutes to present their case. In a subsequent motion to ask the judge to reconsider her decision, prosecutors also argued that Sommer had limited the use of a court interpreter.

However, Sommer said Monday that Assistant District Attorney Shelby Bradley was allotted two hours for a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing in the Huereca case on Sept. 13 – even more time than he had requested – and his time was almost up before he could present his case for detention.

“Ultimately, you were the one who had ten minutes left,” said Sommer. “How can you in good conscience go to court and tell me that it was the court’s fault that you requested preventive detention in such a short time?”

Regarding the court interpreter, Sommer said Bradley contacted an interpreter directly via email rather than requesting one for the hearing in a court motion, as required. “You have to follow the rules,” she said.

When another prosecutor questioned whether an arrest warrant would be issued quickly if Huereca violated the conditions of his house arrest in the middle of the night, Sommer interjected, disputing the attorney’s claims of delays in the trial.

“You call the judge at any time in the morning,” Sommer said. “You send the warrant and the affidavit. … I want you all to know that the pretrial services program doesn’t wait until Monday or something. It’s available immediately.”