Sarah S. Ochoa, the 24-year-old woman accused of impersonating a wealthy home buyer and forcing a Santa Fe Realtor to empty her savings account last Dec. 3, was hired by the City of Santa Fe as a parking attendant on Dec. 14, The New Mexican is reporting.

Parking Division Director Bill Hon told The New Mexican that Ochoa had not missed a day of work until Friday, when she was arrested in Albuquerque by FBI agents.

Ochoa was trained to run a parking lot and issue tickets and was being paid $10.48 an hour, the paper reported.

"She has been an employee that I would keep in a minute," Hon told The New Mexican. "She's very intelligent. She's very good. She does her work. She comes to work every day."

Ochoa, who has extended family in Albuquerque and attended the University of New Mexico, has had a variety of jobs, including as a waitress at the Tamaya Resort & Spa at Santa Ana Pueblo.

She was interviewed by FBI agents at Tamaya on Dec. 6 but denied having anything to do with the robbery, The New Mexican reported.

7:45am 4/15/08 -- Woman Arraigned in Robbery of S.F. Realtor : ABQ waitress, 24, allegedly posed as wealthy buyer to rob agent last December.

Sarah S. Ochoa, 24, of Albuquerque, pleaded not guilty at her arraignment before a federal magistrate on Monday to a charge of interference with commerce by threat or violence in connection with an elaborate robbery scheme she allegedly committed last December, The New Mexican reported today on its Web site.

Ochoa, a waitress at the Tamaya Resort & Spa at Santa Ana Pueblo, was arrested Friday, accused of posing as a wealthy homebuyer who allegedly abducted Santa Fe Realtor Marilyn Foss at gunpoint and forced her to empty her savings account at Los Alamos National Bank, according to The New Mexican and earlier Albuquerque Journal reports.

Ochoa was arrested by federal agents around 7 a.m. Friday outside a residence on the 3300 block of Monroe NE in Albuquerque, after investigators tracked her when someone recognized a tattoo described by Foss shortly after the incident last Dec. 3, the Journal reported over the weekend.

No bond was set at the Monday hearing before U.S. Magistrate Don Svet, but U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Norm Cairns said conditions of release could be set later on, depending on whether a defense attorney raises issues of competency, The New Mexican said.

But Caroline "Cammie" Nichols, an Albuquerque attorney representing Ochoa, said she does not plan to raise the issue of her client's mental competency, saying Ochoa has close ties to the community and has no criminal record, The New Mexican said.

Ochoa's "family and friends were shocked by these allegations," said Nichols, who said Ochoa has family in Albuquerque but was raised in California.

The lawyer also said Ochoa had attended the University of New Mexico and worked maintaining Web sites and was employed at the Santa Fe office of the Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, Dalstrom, Schoenburg & Fry law firm before going to work at the Tamaya Resort, The New Mexican reported.

The FBI began interviewing Ochoa at the Tamaya Resort just three days after the incident, and she denied having anything to do with the crime although she could not provide agents with an alibi and declined to provide a sample of hair for DNA analysis, according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.

Foss actually identified Ochoa's photograph as early as Dec. 11, but she was not arrested until after the FBI tracked financial transactions and phone records to verify Ochoa's identity, according to the affidavit. 

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