Ex-Española councilor faces new charges in alleged shooting incident
A former Española city councilor accused of pistol whipping a man faces a new set of charges.
A Santa Fe County grand jury indicted Eric Radosevich, 45, of Santa Cruz on Friday on charges of aggravated battery with a semi-automatic handgun and shooting at or from a motor vehicle on June 21, 2014. Earlier charges against Radosevich stemming from the same incident were dropped after a district judge rejected a plea deal between Radosevich and the District Attorney’s Office.
Santa Fe County sheriff ’s deputies arrested Radosevich after an alleged a confrontation with a man who had accused Radosevich, then a city councilor, and his friends of flirting with the man’s wife at the Kicks 66 gas station in Pojoaque. Deputies reported that Radosevich struck the man with a handgun several times before fleeing the scene while firing at the man’s vehicle.
Two other men, Samuel Garcia, 51, of Española and Benjamin Duran, 29, of Santa Fe, allegedly were in the truck with Radosevich and partici- pated in the harassment of the man’s wife. They initially faced charges, but those counts have since been dropped.
The District Attorney’s Office dropped the original charges against Radosevich in January after a judge refused to go along with a November 2014 plea agreement. Judge Glenn Ellington said in November he wasn’t comfortable with the deal, which would have allowed Radosevich to serve 18 months on probation and to pay restitution to Perez. The plea also would have given Radosevich a “conditional discharge,” which means the charges would have disappeared from his record if he successfully completed his sentence.