Ex-Pecos coach to plead to rape, other charges
If deal is approved by judge, Baca would face maximum sentence of 9 years in prison
LAS VEGAS, N.M. — A former Pecos High School assistant basketball coach accused of sexually assaulting two underage students will plead guilty to three counts of rape and other charges, prosecutor Thomas Clayton said Friday following a hearing in San Miguel County Magistrate Court.
Dominick Baca, 30, did not enter into a plea deal at the hearing, which had been scheduled as a preliminary examination in a case in which he faces 32 felony counts and a petty misdemeanor stemming from allegations that, while awaiting trial in the rape case, he removed an electronic monitoring device and violated the terms of his release by traveling to Albuquerque multiple times.
However, defense attorney Tom Clark told Magistrate Christopher Anthony Baca his client wished to waive his right to the preliminary examination because he is poised to enter a plea that will resolve both cases at a future appearance before state District Judge Jason Lidyard, who is presiding over the rape case.
Neither Magistrate Christopher Baca, who is not related to the defendant, nor Lidyard normally presides over cases in the Fourth Judicial District where Dominick Baca is charged, but every other judge in that district either recused themselves or was excused from hearing the cases against the former assistant coach.
The magistrate traveled from Santa Rosa for Friday’s hearing. Lidyard was assigned to hear the rape case in the First Judicial District, where Dominick Baca is expected to enter his plea.
The defendant faces three counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor by school personnel and two counts of sexual contact of a minor by school personnel in connection with allegations he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in February 2017 and a 17-year-old girl twice in 2018 while working at Pecos High School.
Dominick Baca is a 2007 graduate of
Pecos High School and played basketball at New Mexico Highlands University from 2010-14.
He had been an assistant coach at the school since 2015, helping guide the Pecos Panthers to Class 3A championships in 2017 and 2018.
The 14-year-old girl told investigators that she met Dominick Baca through his position as coordinator of a program called GEAR-UP, a program designed to increase the number of graduates attending college, and that the two would exchange texts. The girl met him in his car outside her house and Baca coerced her to perform oral sex after she declined to have intercourse with him, according to an affidavit for arrest warrant in the case. Two weeks later they engaged in intercourse in his bedroom, according to the warrant.
The 17-year-old told state police she met Baca in his office upon receiving Snapchat messages from him. That led to their first encounter in his office, the warrant said, and the two started “making out” and he lifted her onto his desk before she pushed him off and left the room. According to the warrant, Baca kissed the girl in his office and grabbed her breast over her clothes one other time before they met at his house in mid-March 2018 and had sex, according to the warrant.
Baca was released on electronic monitoring following his arrest on the initial charges, but a warrant was issued for his arrest in May after he allegedly violated conditions of his release by leaving San Miguel County without permission.
Prosecutors said Baca attended a state high school basketball tournament at The Pit in Albuquerque and tampered with his electronic monitoring device, and he had ridden the Pecos basketball team’s bus back to Pecos the following day.
Baca was charged with 33 new fourth-degree felony charges in relation to those allegations. Each of the charges pending against Baca, with the exception of one, carries a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison. If convicted on all counts against him, he could have been sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.
The defense lawyer said Friday that in addition to three rape charges, his client will plead guilty to one count each of criminal sexual contact, tampering with evidence and escape from a community custody release program. If sentenced to the maximum on each of the six charges, he could be sent to prison for nine years.
Clayton and Clark said the plea agreement — which has not yet been accepted by a judge or entered into the record — contains an agreed upon “range” for Baca’s sentence, but they declined to provide specifics.
Baca appeared at Friday’s hearing in an orange jumpsuit and shackles. About a dozen members of his family also attended. His attorney asked the magistrate at the end of the hearing whether his client could lean over the railing separating him from the gallery and converse with his family members, without touching, following the hearing.
The magistrate left that up to the transport officer who had accompanied the former coach to the courthouse Friday. The officer declined the request.
The Pecos Independent School District in January reached a settlement with the older of the two girls who Baca allegedly sexually assaulted. The New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority agreed to pay the student and her family $290,000.
A lawsuit filed by the younger of the two girls — both of whom claimed school officials knew of Baca’s inappropriate behavior but failed to protect them from him — was still pending as of Friday.