Carjacking suspect will remain jailed until trial
Police say man slashed vehicle owner’s hand in Corrales-area incident
An 18-year-old man accused of slashing a 71-year-old woman’s hand during a carjacking will stay behind bars until his trial, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Gael Rodriguez was arrested last month in Corrales. If convicted, he could face 25 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors argued that Rodriguez, who is from Mexico, is a flight risk.
“He has no incentive to remain in this country to be accountable for his actions,” prosecutors wrote in a motion to detain him.
Prosecutors say that the woman is still “shaken and in shock,” and wants him detained because he is dangerous and “his attack on her was so very brazen.”
A federal judge has since ordered Rodriguez to stay behind bars pending trial.
According to the motion filed in U.S. District Court:
On Jan. 16, police responded just before 5 p.m. to a carjacking at the River Walk apartments, near Corrales and Alameda. They found the woman “shaking” and holding her bleeding left hand in a cloth.
She told police a man, later identified as Rodriguez, asked for a cigarette and, when she declined, he replied, “then give me your purse and keys.” The woman tried to push him, but he slashed her hand, causing her to drop her keys.
The woman suffers from a blood condition that caused her to need emergency medical treatment for the wound. Meanwhile,
Rodriguez fled in her pickup truck and, soon after, caused a crash in Corrales.
Rodriguez ditched the truck and hid in a feed house before he jumped several fences to evade police. Once cornered, police spent 20 minutes convincing him to drop a pair of gardening shears he held to his throat.
The woman later identified him as the man who carjacked her and they found a bloody knife in the stolen truck.