Child neglect charges are dismissed in N. Mexico
SANTA FE, N.M. — A startling rebuke of a local prosecutor and questions about legal tactics by a hard-charging sheriff are casting a shadow over efforts to prosecute members of an extended family arrested at a squalid New Mexico compound where the body of a 3-year-old had been hidden for months.
State politicians expressed alarm after child neglect charges were dismissed against all five defendants from the compound and three were set free with only misdemeanor trespassing charges against them. Allegations of antigovernment plotting, jihad and martyrdom at the compound stocked with guns — drawn in part from FBI interviews with children — has done little to persuade judges of any immediate threat to public safety.
None of the suspects has known criminal convictions, while authorities blame the boy’s death on his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, and the father’s partner, Jany Leveille. They remain jailed on more serious child abuse charges that can carry a life sentence.
U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Democratic candidate for governor, called the dismissal of neglect charges “inexcusable” and said she was “appalled at the failure to hold these defendants accountable.” Republican gubernatorial hopeful Steve Pearce called for the resignation of the local district attorney, who is a Democrat.
Two judges said they had no choice but to dismiss charges and free three defendants after the district attorney’s office missed a 10-day deadline to show probable cause of a crime at a required court hearing, which was never requested.
“I don’t know whether they are overworked, if they don’t have enough people at their office. I don’t see a district attorney here,” Jeff McElroy, chief judge for the state district court, said in a courtroom Wednesday. “It is disturbing to me that the district attorney would put this court in that kind of a situation where we must comply with the rule, and we must dismiss this.”
Taos-based District Attorney Donald Gallegos said Thursday he intends to refile charges against the three or take the case to a grand jury.
Prosecutors from his office told the judges they had expected the suspects to be released on house arrest under terms of a pretrial detention order, which would have extended the deadline to 60 days to hold the required court hearing.
Prosecutors are preparing to justify new charges of child abuse resulting in death and conspiracy to commit child abuse against Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille. The couple pleaded not guilty Wednesday.