Nuñez to remain in jail until trial
Suspect’s mother, Jeremiah’s sister testify about abuse by Ferguson
Jordan Anthony Nuñez, charged with fatally abusing 13-year-old Jeremiah Valencia and helping to cover up the boy’s death in Nambé late last year, will be held in jail until his trial, a state District Court judge ruled Wednesday.
The decision came after a day and a half of emotional testimony from the lead detective in the case as well as Nuñez’s mother and the only witness to the boy’s death who is not in jail: Jeremiah’s younger sister.
Nuñez, 20, has been charged with child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence.
His father, 42-year-old Thomas Wayne Ferguson, who had faced a first-degree murder charge in the boy’s death, killed himself in the Santa Fe County jail in April. Prosecutors initially named Ferguson as Jeremiah’s killer but now allege evidence points to Nuñez as the individual who dealt the fatal blow to a boy who had suffered months of severe abuse at the hands of multiple members of the household.
Nuñez has not been charged with homicide in the case.
Over the course of a lengthy pretrial detention hearing, Nuñez’s defense attorneys argued his role in the boy’s torture and death was
spurred by the terror of his father.
Defense attorneys called Nunez’s mother, Amanda Nuñez, 39, to the stand to testify Wednesday on his behalf. She described her son and Ferguson as “nothing alike.”
“He’s the type of kid that’d give you the shirt off his back,” Amanda Nuñez said of her son. “He’s always there to help you. No matter what.”
She painted a much different picture of Ferguson, a man she said she married at age 14 and with whom she had five children. She described beatings at the hands of Ferguson that were so severe they caused multiple miscarriages. Ferguson also would hit her children and their animals, and make the children fight one another, she said.
Amanda Nuñez’s family was so terrified of the man, she said, that many of her children changed their names to hide from Ferguson after they were taken out of his custody.
Jordan Nuñez, she said, was born with the first name Julian.
“He [Ferguson] was abusive,” Amanda Nuñez said. “… When we had kids, it got even worse. He would hit my kids. It wasn’t something I could stop or I could help. When I asked for help, it wasn’t given to me.”
A typically reserved Jordan Nuñez reached for the tissue box during parts of the testimony, quietly crying as his mother shed her own tears on the stand.
The emotional testimony was not enough to convince Judge Matthew Wilson that Jordan Nuñez is not a threat to society.
Wilson acknowledged the testimony about Nuñez’s childhood abuse during his ruling and said there is some evidence Nuñez was under Ferguson’s control. But he also pointed to a number of violent actions Nuñez is alleged to have committed, including keeping Jeremiah in a dog kennel, shocking him with an electric collar and threatening a co-defendant in the case.
“There are admissions in this case where Mr. Nuñez is at least admitting to participating in the abuse of Jeremiah,” Wilson said. “The court finds that the state has met its burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence. There are no pretrial release conditions that can be imposed that will reasonably protect the community.”
The ruling came after testimony regarding the roles Nuñez and Jeremiah’s mother, Tracy Ann Peña, may have had in Jeremiah’s death. Both are charged with child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence.
Prosecutors argued Nuñez tortured Jeremiah even when Ferguson was not around, then bragged about killing him. In the first day of the hearing, they showed Facebook messages in which Nuñez told a friend he “took something off the map” — slang for getting rid of something, or eliminating it — according to a detective.
Prosecutors also argued during the hearing’s first day early this month that Peña, 36, had enabled the torture of her son, and they played phone calls between her and Ferguson — her boyfriend — in which she openly discussed his torture.
Defense attorneys on Wednesday were set to call their own witnesses and argue why the pair should be released from jail.
However, in a surprise move earlier this week, Peña’s lawyer, Michael Rosenfield, filed a motion notifying the court she would forgo her right to the detention hearing. District Attorney Marco Serna said in a text message Wednesday his office remains in plea discussions with Rosenfield.
Neither Rosenfield nor Serna would elaborate on the conditions of a potential deal earlier this week, but in his motion to the court, Rosenfield wrote the agreement would likely “require Ms. Peña to remain in custody.”
Wednesday’s hearing focused solely on Nuñez.
Jeremiah’s 13-year-old sister, whose testimony has been a key point for both the prosecution and the defense, told the court Nuñez had never abused her or her mother. But, she said, she did see him torture Jeremiah, even when Ferguson was not around.
Prosecutors, defense attorneys and child welfare advocates from the state Children, Youth and Families Department argued extensively before the hearing about whether the girl should be required to testify.
Both days of the hearing started with a CYFD lawyer arguing why the girl should not have to go through the trauma of facing Nuñez and Peña from the stand. Prosecutor Jennifer Padgett supported the department’s request, telling the judge the girl had suffered an emotional breakdown the night before Wednesday’s hearing, due to the stress of testifying.
While Wilson maintained the girl would have to testify in court, he limited the time for the defense to question her to 30 minutes and allowed the state only 15 minutes for a crossexamination. The judge pointed out the girl had given an extensive pretrial interview and that he had read the the transcript in its entirety.
Ultimately, the testimony didn’t take much time.
One of Nuñez’s attorneys, Theresa Duncan, asked the girl to describe what living with Ferguson was like.
“It was hard, and it wasn’t very fun,” the girl said. “He was always angry and was always being mean to my mom or to me or to anyone in the house. He would always be mad, and he would take it out on all of us.”
She described a climate in which Ferguson would watch the family on video cameras inside the house, prevent them from leaving and abuse not only Jeremiah, but also Peña, the girl and their animals.
The girl said Ferguson also forced her to hurt Jeremiah.
When asked by defense attorneys if she tried to talk back to Ferguson, she said: “It didn’t happen often, because I was too scared to do it a lot.”
Nuñez’s trial isn’t likely to start until at least early 2019. Preliminary trial dates, subject to change, show a jury selection in the case scheduled for March.