Judge orders mother’s release in assault case

Velarde woman accused of aiding in rape must avoid kids

A judge on Monday ordered the release of a Velarde mother accused of helping her boyfriend sexually assault her 8-year-old son.

The woman — who The New Mexican is not naming to protect the identity of her children — and her boyfriend, Ezekiel Maestas, were both indicted last week on charges of criminal sexual penetration in the first degree of a child under the age of 13.

An affidavit for a search warrant for the property where the woman lives says her son told a Children, Youth and Families Department caseworker in an interview that his mother’s boyfriend had raped him while his mother held him down on a bed.

State prosecutors asked a state district judge to hold both Maestas and the boy’s mother in jail pending trial, arguing they were too dangerous for release.

On Tuesday, Judge Jason Lidyard denied that request. He ordered the boy’s mother released on her own personal recognizance. She is allowed to continue working but must avoid all contact with minor children, including her two sons, who are 7 and 8 years old.

Maestas will go before Lidyard on July 10 to learn whether he’ll be released from jail pending trial.

In their motion for preventive detention, prosecutors said Maestas has faced criminal charges in connection with children in the past.

In 2011, he was charged with felony child abandonment, a charge that was dismissed by prosecutors in a plea deal.

Maestas faced a charge of raping a minor in 2016, but the District Attorney’s Office dropped that case because witnesses stopped cooperating with prosecutors, District Attorney Marco Serna said in an interview last week.

That case could be reopened, he said.