Charges dismissed in deadly Santa Fe crash
Indictment was challenged over false witness account
SANTA FE — A judge has dismissed a vehicular homicide indictment against a young woman who was charged with running over and killing a Santa Fe motorcyclist during a power outage last year.
State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington granted a defense motion that maintained that a false account had been presented to the grand jury that indicted Megan Carrillo, 24, in the fatal accident, and that a prosecutor also had failed to present an official “alert” letter detailing the evidence in the case that was supposed to go to the jury.
Along with the vehicular homicide count, Carrillo was indicted on reckless driving and careless driving charges after she rear-ended and ran over Jerry Hicks, 39, at the intersection of Cerrillos Road and Cristo’s Road — the street that leads to the Kohl’s department store — during a major power outage the evening of Aug. 7.
Carrillo’s attorney, Doug Couleur, filed a motion to dismiss the indictment Dec. 5, arguing that then-Chief Deputy District Attorney Juan Valencia didn’t present all of the evidence in the alert letter and that the grand jury was given a false account by one of the witnesses.
Ellington sided with Couleur and found that the alert letter was not presented and that some of one witness’s testimony during the jury’s proceedings contradicted video evidence. “The alert letter itself and some of the evidence requested in it was not brought before the grand jury,” Ellington said.
He added, “It’s very obvious that one of the statements (by the witness) does not conform with the evidence, and the statement was not corrected. Based on these two findings, the grand jury proceedings will be dismissed without
prejudice.” The “without prejudice” designation means prosecutors can re-file the charges.
Couleur wrote in his motion that the witness testified she had been stopped “for a while” at the intersection next to motorcyclist Hicks when “this car just came flying out of nowhere and hit him.”
Couleur said the witness was never asked to identify her SUV, described in the motion as a bluish-gray Dodge Journey SUV, in any of the videos played for the grand jury. Video shown to the grand jury shows instead a dark-colored sports car next to the motorcycle, Couleur writes. He wrote that the SUV pulls up next to Hicks’ body about 10-12 seconds after the accident. “The Alert Letter identifies the exact times that the various cars appear on the video which clearly would have alerted the grand jury to (the witness’s) false testimony,” Couleur wrote.
Prosecutor Todd Bullion, who took over the case after Valencia retired, acknowledged in court that Valencia didn’t read the alert letter to the grand jury, “but he attempted to comply with it. That’s how I’ll put it,” he said. “Mr. Valencia presented most of the evidence in the alert letter. I think the grand jury had a very clear picture of the events that day.”
On the possibility of re-filing charges, he said after the hearing: “We’ll look at it and we’ll consult with the district attorney before making any final decisions.”
Carrillo told police after the wreck that she had a lot on her mind and was “very distracted” and didn’t notice that Hicks, a local businessman who was heading home after shopping with his family, had stopped in front of her before entering the intersection, according to court documents. A lightning strike had knocked out power, and Carrillo told officers that she was looking into the nearby Kohl’s parking lot to see if the lights were out.