Coleman a flight threat?
Gallup Indian trader to undergo another psychiatric evaluation

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

Steve Coleman sits inside a McKinley County Detention Center transport vehicle in this file photo. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

GALLUP — Local Indian trader Steve Coleman is still scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 7, but before that happens, he will undergo another mental evaluation.

Coleman and his new legal counsel, Albuquerque-based criminal defense attorney Bob Cooper, appeared before District Court Judge Robert Aragon Monday to ask permission to have Coleman transported to Albuquerque Wednesday and Thursday so he could be evaluated by a psychologist for the defense. Aragon granted the request, but not until a lot of discussion occurred about Coleman being a possible flight risk.

Coleman has pled no contest to charges dealing with an attempted arson on offices where he was undergoing counseling and shooting a gun at the unoccupied home of a deputy sheriff who had cited him for DWI. He had been scheduled to be sentenced last month, but Aragon had to postpone it after Coleman fired his original attorney because he refused to call witnesses on his behalf at the sentencing.

Michael Calligan, the senior prosecutor in the McKinley County District Attorney’s Office, told Aragon he had no problem allowing Coleman to have another mental evaluation, but he did have concerns about transporting Coleman to Albuquerque so he could be interviewed in the offices of the psychologist, Dr. Moss Aubrey.

“Why can’t he come here and interview him here?” Calligan said.

The reason why, said Cooper, is that Aubrey refused to come to Gallup for the interview, which is expected to take 12 hours over two days.

So why couldn’t Coleman be transported to the Bernalillo County Detention Center where he could be held in secured quarters and Aubrey could do the interviews there?

The reason why, said Cooper, is that Aubrey refuses to leave his office. “I have had many clients interviewed by Aubrey, and they have all been interviewed at his office,” he said.

But Calligan, again referring to Coleman as a danger to the community, didn’t like the fact that Coleman would be in an office with guards outside, since this would allow him a chance to escape through another door or through the window. “He’s a definite flight risk,” he said.

Cooper explained that the office where the interviews would be conducted did not have windows, and there was only one entrance and exit.

A compromise was reached whereby Coleman would be transported to Aubrey’s office each morning from the McKinley County Detention Center, where he is currently being jailed, to Albuquerque where he will be interviewed at Aubrey’s office. But while there, he will be shackled both on the legs and on the hands to make it harder for him to escape. After each day’s session, he will be transported back to Gallup.

The apparent reason for the new evaluation is because the evaluation done by the state a couple of months ago was very harsh in its comments about Coleman, and the defense wanted a second opinion that may show Coleman in a different light. If that evaluation is similar to the one the state did, the defense does not have to present it at the sentencing.

The whole rationale behind this is Coleman’s attempt to get a lighter sentence, possibly for time already served in the county jail or under house arrest. The prosecution has already indicated that it will seek a sentence of four and a half years.

The defense had filed a motion to have the evaluation placed under seal, but Aragon declined to do this. McKinley County District Attorney Karl Gillson has refused to release the evaluation, saying that this may be a violation of federal laws providing privacy to hospital patients, although Coleman was not treated at a hospital, and the evaluation is not a hospital record but a court record.