DA recuses self in case against Capital coach
Serna longtime friends with couple; prosecutor in Las Vegas, N.M., asked to take over domestic violence case
District Attorney Marco Serna said Tuesday he wants an outside prosecutor to take over a domestic violence case against Capital High School girls basketball coach Jonathan Salazar because Serna is old friends with Salazar and his wife.
Serna said he has asked the District Attorney’s Office in Las Vegas, N.M., to assume the prosecution. He said the Salazars did social media work for his election campaign last year.
“I’ve gotten to work with both of them and I’ve known [her] family for years, too, and because they both worked for me, I thought my office shouldn’t be handling it,” Serna said. “It’s one of those unfortunate situations.”
Salazar, 34, faces a felony charge of aggravated assault against a household member with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor charges of battery against a household member and criminal damage to property in connection with a June 28 incident. He allegedly threw glass objects at a wall above his wife’s head, showering her with broken glass and leading to a cut in a leg.
Neither Salazar, who filed for divorce from his wife in July, nor his attorney, Dan Cron, could be reached for comment.
Cron said last month that he was working with the District Attorney’s Office to get the charges resolved and that
he was hopeful that Salazar and his wife would work things out.
Salazar’s wife said she thinks Serna did the right thing by recusing his office from the case “because [Serna] is a good friend of both of ours. We’ve both known him for many years.”
Santa Fe Public Schools spokesman Jeff Gephart said last month that Salazar — a former boys basketball coach at Desert Academy who was hired to coach the Capital High School girls basketball team about five months before the alleged domestic incident — would not participate in any preseason activities.
“After adjudication,” Gephart said, “the District will meet with Mr. Salazar to determine a course of action.”
Salazar, who was not immediately arrested after the alleged incident, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Magistrate Court before Judge David Segura.
Asked to comment on reports that Segura is also a family friend, Salazar’s wife declined to comment except to say, “Judge Segura was a guest at our wedding.”