Defendant Claims He Paid Cash For Drug Test

A man awaiting trial on misdemeanor domestic violence charges was allowed to post bond rather than being sent back to the Community Corrections Program after he testified that a corrections officer charged him cash for a special drug and alcohol test.

Todd Turrieta, 45, said during his bond hearing last week that he needed the special drug-alcohol swab test because drugs he was prescribed for cirrhosis of the liver prevented him from taking the usual urine test.

Turrieta said he gave the officer $24 and wasn’t given a receipt. He filed a complaint and said he was later told the officer never turned the money in to the program.

Turrieta, his mother and others during the course of the hearing expressed concern that, if he was put back in the Community Corrections Program, he would be retaliated against for reporting the officer.

The jail’s house arrest program, which is crucial to keeping the inmate population down, has been a source of controversy. Last year, a central figure in the Community Corrections Program, Vince Peele, pleaded guilty to taking bribes to allow jail inmates to get into the program. He was sentenced to five years probation.

Turrieta also told Metropolitan Court Judge Judith Nakamura during the bond hearing that the same officer later sent him back to jail for violating his conditions of release for failing to check in despite phone records showing he called the officer’s number five times during the designated call-in period.

Nakamura, according to the audio recording of the court proceedings, said the court wanted to look into the matter further. She put Turrieta under oath and reminded him that if he lied he would be guilty of perjury.

Turrieta repeated the story of giving the corrections officer cash, not getting a receipt, and signing a complaint against the officer once he was put back in jail.

Nakamura reduced his $25,000 cash-only bond to a $20,000 cash or surety bond, which allowed his family to post property or pay a bail bond company to post the bond.

Court records show a bail bond was posted.

According to the audio recording, Turrieta’s bond had been set high because he had a lengthy history of domestic violence charges, which Turrieta claimed were all eventually dismissed.

His mother told Nakamura that a captain at the Metropolitan Detention Center told her the complaint was under investigation.

A jail spokesman confirmed Friday evening that there is an ongoing investigation.

Turrieta’s current charge stems from an incident last July when he had an argument with his then-girlfriend and pushed her onto a bed before driving her to the University of New Mexico Hospital’s mental health unit.
— This article appeared on page A6 of the Albuquerque Journal