Attack, Rip-off Linked
$125 Bag of Soap Sold as Cocaine
There isn’t a Better Business Bureau for drug dealers, so when a 53-year-old Santa Fe man realized he was sold a $125 bag of soap passed off as cocaine Thursday, he took matters into his own hands.
Rober t Truji l lo was arraigned in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court on Friday on five felony counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He is accused of ramming his 1990 Ford F-150 pickup truck head-on into a Chevrolet Cavalier holding five women. Police say the incident occurred on Harrison Road around 4:37 p.m.
Trujillo is being held on $30,000 cash bond in Santa Fe County Jail, following his
initial appearance in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court on Friday. He asked if he could plead guilty so he could “get this over with,” but he could not enter a plea to those charges in magistrate court. Trujillo also told the judge he disagreed with the charges against him.
“It wasn’t a deadly weapon, ma’am,” he said. A probable cause arrest statement alleges that, when police arrived at the scene of the crash, they saw women exit the Cavalier who were “aggressive towards officers and crying hysterically.” The man driving the truck had a wound to his face and was bleeding. Everyone was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.
There, police interviewed Trujillo, who said he wanted to be honest about what happened. He said he went to a home on Harrison Road to meet a man to buy cocaine. Trujillo said he gave the man $125 and received a bag of what he thought was coke.
“Mr. Trujillo advised that he quickly became aware that the content of the bag was soap and not cocaine,” the affidavit states.
Trujillo said he started yelling that he wanted his money back. A woman walked out of the home and told him that the man who sold him the suspicious bag had left.
Trujillo told police he had been burned like this before by the same people, and he thought the women were involved.
When he saw the women in a vehicle leaving the home, he started swerving toward them, he said, thinking he could scare them into giving his money back. He told police he was driving about 25 mph and “gently” applied his brakes as he approached.
Instead he collided with the Cavalier.
The women suffered minor injuries, according to the police. One woman said Trujillo attempted to leave after the crash but couldn’t get the truck to start. She said he offered them money several times to let him leave.
None of the women interviewed mentioned the bag of soap, but one said she thought the man at the home earlier owed Trujillo drugs. Another woman said she thought there was a debt of money between the two.
Santa Fe Lt. Louis Carlos said it’s illegal to sell fake street drugs, but based on the investigation, police believe the women were not the ones responsible for selling the fake coke to Trujillo.