Ex-Candidate Was Wanted for Assault in Texas

However, El Paso police said Friday that Smith was also fleeing the state to avoid felony arrest warrants for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief.

Smith is also in trouble here.

He had his first appearance before a judge Friday. He is accused of stalking Janice Arnold-Jones, whom he hoped to face in the Republican congressional primary, though he never made the ballot. He has also been charged in connection with slashing her tires.

Also, a second aggravated stalking arrest warrant was filed Friday against Smith regarding his former campaign manager.

In El Paso, Smith allegedly had a dispute with his former neighbors over a piece of their air conditioner that damaged a skylight at his home next door in 2008, according to APD detective Lorenzo Garcia.

Garcia spoke with the neighbor, Kenneth Propps, who said Smith stabbed him in the arm after Propps caught Smith slashing his tires with a knife in 2012. Propps was trying to grab Smith when he was stabbed, Garcia said, and then Smith climbed over a fence and ran away.

The El Paso neighbors have filed police reports since 2008 regarding paint thrown on their walls, stabbed tires and even an attempt to set their bedroom on fire, according to reports obtained by the Santa Fe Reporter.

El Paso Police Department spokesman Mike Baranyay said an arrest warrant was issued in March in connection with the stabbing. He’s unsure why the outstanding warrant was never reported to the National Crime Information Center, which would have alerted Albuquerque police when they first started investigating Smith here.

“I don’t know why it wasn’t entered into NCIC,” Baranyay said. “Apparently, we didn’t enter him.”

Baranyay said El Paso officers regularly do not pass some warrants along to NCIC if the department has no plans to extradite a suspect, because “what would be the point?” he said.

Garcia, however, said that information about Smith’s criminal history could have been crucial when Garcia began investigating Smith, especially when officers arrived to arrest Smith last week.

Regardless, Garcia said, Smith is now in jail in New Mexico.

“He’s in custody,” Garcia said. “We’re not going to let anything get lost through the cracks here.”

In fact, an additional arrest warrant was filed against Smith on Friday. He’s being charged with aggravated stalking against Rhead Story, his former campaign manager, after police said Story’s wife saw Smith near their home at least three times, once while Smith was carrying a sharp object.

Smith also had his first court appearance Friday, after being charged with a separate count of aggravated stalking, a fourth-degree felony, against eventual Republican nominee Arnold-Jones. Smith was seen at her home after a judge ordered him to stay away.

The judge ordered Smith to avoid Arnold-Jones’ home after he’d been charged with slashing the her tires days earlier. Arnold-Jones and her supporters filed a lawsuit that got Smith knocked off the primary ballot in 2012, because Smith did not have enough verified signatures to get a spot.

Metro Court Judge Daniel Ramczyk made it clear how irked he was that Smith would defy his orders to stay away from Arnold-Jones’ home. Ramczyk set Smith’s bail at $100,000, cash-only, a rarity for him, the judge said.

“(My order) is not onerous. It’s not unfair,” Ramczyk told Smith. “… It’s ‘stay away from these people,’ and you couldn’t do it.”

Smith said he didn’t understand the judge’s orders. Smith also insisted on making a statement to the judge and those in attendance, although the judge encouraged him to speak only to an attorney privately.

Smith tried to reassure Arnold-Jones that he means no harm.

“I am of no danger. I had no intent,” Smith said, as a public defender loudly cleared her throat to discourage him from speaking at all. “There’s no reason for them to worry.”

Smith will likely go before a judge again in the next couple of days on the aggravated stalking charge stemming from the warrant issued Friday in the case involving Story, the former campaign manager, Garcia said.

Smith is being held at Metropolitan Detention Center on a $150,000 cash-only bond, which includes the bond from the prior criminal property damage charge.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal