Charges added to jail inmate who flooded cellblocks

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — A 21-year-old Eagle Nest man arrested in mid-December for allegedly stealing a Jaguar belonging to a Washington, D.C., man faces additional charges for damage to the Cibola County Detention Center on Jan. 8.

As of Friday morning, Christopher Trujillo remained in the county jail he is accused of partially flooding on a $20,000 secured bond on some charges plus a no-bond bench warrant from Colfax (Raton) County.

Jail Chief Mark Ewell said Trujillo was standing on the toilet and claimed to have lost his balance, then grabbed the fire suppression sprinkler which is high on the wall near the ceiling. His fall broke it, turning on the water automatically.

This left the entire Cibola County Justice Center the jail as well as the sheriff's office and magistrate court without a fire suppression system overnight until it could be repaired Tuesday morning.

Detention Center Warden-Director Rick Lucero said each sprinkler head costs $110, plus the time to replace it. Two pods of cells were flooded, with each one holding up to 24 inmates. One pod was full and another partially full at the time, jail officials indicated.

"The biggest pain is the cleanup. It's a long process to do a cleanup," Chief Ewell commented.

As of Friday morning, no charges about the damage had been filed against Trujillo in Cibola County Magistrate Court, but the jail computer showed him being booked on the additional charges of criminal damage (with a $2,000 surety bond required for release) and interference with a bomb or fire control in a jail or prison.

In his incident report, Cibola County Sheriff's Office Deputy Freddie Espinosa said he was called to the jail around 7:40 p.m. "He was talking to the cell mate next to him through the vent in the wall and when he was getting down, his arm hit the fire sprinkler head and that the sprinkler went off. Christopher also stated that it was an accident," the deputy said.

Espinosa reported that Lt. David Sisneros had to staff an all-night fire watch.

Trujillo is 5-ft. 7-in. tall and weighs 140 pounds.

On Dec. 16, New Mexico State Police Division Officer Dusty Francisco arrested Trujillo on charges of 4th-degree felony possession of a stolen motor vehicle, 4th-degree felony possession of stolen property, plus three misdemeanors of speeding, driving without a license and not yielding to an emergency vehicle using its lights and sirens.

Magistrate Court granted the District Attorney's Office a continuance on the five charges until Jan. 23 for a preliminary examination, with John Bezzeg appointed as the public defender, taking over from Gary Fernandez.

In his probable cause statement, Francisco said he spotted a green 1997 Jaguar headed east on Interstate 40 near Mile Marker 74. It took him a mile to catch up and two more miles before the driver pulled over, having been clocked at 98 mph in a 75 mph zone.

Trujillo told the officer he was headed from Gallup to Raton and the car belonged to a friend in Albuquerque. Officer Rudy Graham and Sgt. Rick Doty arrived to assist, since there were two passengers.

Daniel Casey, no age listed, told officers the man and woman picked him up in Indio, Calif., on Interstate 10. Convinced he didn't know the Jaguar was stolen, officers released him. He did say Jaguars usually don't stop to give him a ride.

The other passenger was Trujillo's girlfriend, Azalea Gusterson, no age listed.

According to the probable cause statement, she admitted to the sergeant she had stolen an IBM laptop computer, a Palm Pilot, a Blackberry, and a Nokia cellular telephone from a home in Laguna Beach, Calif., in the southern Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Magistrate Court released her Dec. 24 on a $15,000 secured bond and scheduled her preliminary examination for Feb. 23 to face charges of stolen vehicle possession and stolen property possession.