Woman pleads guilty in vehicular homicide case

A 32-year-old Questa woman pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and great bodily harm by vehicle — a side-by-side, or offhighway-vehicle — on Monday (Dec. 19).

Christian Ortega’s plea conference began last Tuesday (Dec. 13) and was reconvened again on Monday. Cosme Ripol, prosecutor for the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s

Office, and defense attorney Alan Maestas presented the plea disposition agreement, in which Ortega agreed to plead guilty to one count of vehicular homicide and one count of great bodily injury by vehicle, both third-degree felonies.

According to Ripol, Ortega was attending a picnic with her family and friends on May 2 of last year when Ortega got into a motor vehicle with Samantha Griffin and Enriquetta Vigil. Ortega drove at high speeds through mountain roads, Ripol said, before she lost control of the vehicle, causing Vigil’s death and injuries sustained by Griffin.

Out of what Ripol described as “fear,” Ortega lied to law enforcement and the families of the victims, saying Vigil was the driver and caused her own death. Griffin later confessed to law enforcement that she and Ortega had lied about the circumstances of the crash.

According to Vigil’s parents,

Cynthia Rael-Vigil and Armando Vigil, both of whom gave statements at the plea conference, Ortega was heavily intoxicated while operating what they described as an ATV, even noting that the vehicle only had room for one driver and one passenger. However, according to what Ripol said on Dec. 13, the evidence pointing toward Ortega’s intoxication is insubstantial due to “investigatory inadequacies.” According to judge Emilio Chavez, the vehicle’s speed was the only official contributing factor to the crash.

Chavez accepted Ortega’s plea, but abstained from scheduling a sentencing hearing until Ortega undergoes a pre-sentence screening report. Ortega faces anything from a conditional discharge to six years in the Department of Corrections with an additional two-year parole period. According to Ripol, Ortega may be liable for restitution, but that has yet to be determined.