Mora man charged with rape
Suspect in attack on girl had role in school basketball team
SANTA FE — A former Mora High School assistant basketball coach or team manager has been arrested and charged with raping and stabbing a 14-year-old female student in late 2016.
Apolonio Leroy Blea, 21, was booked into the San Miguel County jail Wednesday, according to the State Police. He’s charged with one count of criminal sexual penetration by force or coercion, one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and one count of sexual communication with a child.
The State Police identified Blea as an assistant coach, but Mora schools Superintendent Ella Arellano said
Blea was a volunteer manager for the team, from November 2016 to March 2017.
According to an affidavit for an arrest warrant, Blea’s alleged victim says he started communicating with her via Facebook and then by text, phone and Skype in October 2016.
The girl was 14, and Blea turned 20 the following month.
The girl, who State Police say is a Mora High School student, underwent a forensic interview at the Tri-County Justice Center in Las Vegas in March of this year and described four instances in which she went to Blea’s house in Mora, according to the affidavit.
She once met with Blea after telling her parents she was going trick-ortreating for Halloween, and he told her he loved her and he kissed her, the affidavit says.
A couple weeks later, on Blea’s birthday in November 2016, the girl said, she was sitting on the floor in Blea’s room when he got on top of her and said, “It’s my birthday, aren’t you going to give me a present?” She said Blea began to take her clothes off and kiss her, but she told him to stop and get off her.
She said Blea responded, “It’s not your decision. I can see it in your eyes you want it,” according to the affidavit. The girl said Blea then raped her and she “blanked out and didn’t remember anything until he got off.”
Afterward, she said, they both got into his car and he told her, “It’s my birthday; you’re supposed to love me.”
The next month, in December 2016, she sneaked out of her house and met Blea at the end of her driveway and was taken to his house, she said in the affidavit.
Once at the home, Blea demanded to see her phone. After admitting to Blea that she deleted a text conversation in which she told a friend that Blea was being “psycho,” Blea threw her phone against the wall, went into the bathroom and cut his hand with a steak knife, the affidavit says.
The girl told the interviewer that Blea then attacked her. “Apolonio pushed (the girl) on the floor, got on top of her, and began hitting her head against the floor,” the affidavit says. “(The girl) said she was screaming and he told her to shut up because someone was going to hear her.”
Blea next pushed her up against the wall and hit her head against the wall. He told her, “I hope you (expletive) die,” the affidavit says.
Blea cut his own wrist with the steak knife and wiped the blood on her shirt. The girl ran away from him, but Blea approached her again with “a look on his face ‘like he wanted to kill me,’” the girl said, and he stabbed her in the leg. The girl said she bled but the knife didn’t go in very deep.
After Blea patched up her wound, she told him she felt sick and was spitting out blood.
“Apolonio told her, ‘I don’t care, I hope you die anyway,’” the affidavit says. “‘If you’re going to die, go die at your house, because I don’t want them to find you here. If you’re going to kill yourself, go kill yourself at your house.’ ”
The next day, Blea apologized and said he was afraid she was going to leave him. He said he would kill himself if she did. He also told her to say that she stabbed herself if anyone asked.