Bond halved in toe-bite case

A pro tem judge in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court on Friday reduced bond for the Santa Fe man who has been accused three times now of violently assaulting his ex-girlfriend and trying to chew off her toes.

Judge Theresa Baca lowered bond that 27-year-old Daniel Anaya must post for release from jail pending trial to $50,000 cash or surety, according to court spokeswoman Janet Blair.

The alleged stalker previously had been held on $100,000 cash-only bond for felony charges including assault, aggravated stalking and kidnapping following his most recent arrest on Monday.

To make the $50,000 bond, Anaya could post 10 percent of that amount to a bail bondsman to get out of jail.

If he’s released, Anaya will be on pretrial supervision, an arrangement which Blair said would be similar to seeing a probation officer.

Anaya hasn’t previously shown he’s willing to follow orders to stay away from the woman he’s accused of assaulting. Only 10 days before Monday’s attack, his alleged victim – also his former fiancée – had obtained a court order of protection in which he was directed to not be near her, under terms where violations could mean going to jail for nearly a year.

Anaya – a former department store shoe salesman – is accused of entering the woman’s current residence on Monday, fighting her to the ground, biting her right toe and attempting to remove the toe with a cigar cutter.

Anaya somehow found the woman at the Albuquerque home of a relative, where she told police she moved from Santa Fe to get away from Anaya. She said she hadn’t documented her new address anywhere.

The most recent case is being heard in Albuquerque because the attack occurred there, although both Anaya and the woman he’s accused of stalking both list Santa Fe addresses in previous court records.

Under terms of Friday’s bond order, Anaya also will not be allowed to leave Bernalillo County – where Anaya’s victim says she’s fled to get away from him following a previous violent assault in February where he bit off part of her big toe down to the bone – should he make bond.

“That’s a problem,” Santa Fe Attorney Angela “Spence” Pacheco said of the requirement that Anaya stay in Bernalillo County.

It’s unclear if the Albuquerque judge was familiar with all the details of Anaya’s recent history of alleged stalking and attacks. Anaya also faces a number of serious charges in the February case and was out of jail on bond in that case before his rearrest on Monday.

Kayla Anderson, a spokeswoman with the Albuquerque District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors there typically do not appear in Metropolitan Court for first felony appearances. She said prosecutors usually open a case file afterward.

Anderson said judges also can draw on a defendant’s past criminal history in making bond rulings. Anaya had no criminal record before the toe attack in February, and the charges in that case have been dismissed in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court as prosecutors pursue a grand jury indictment in the higher-level state District Court.

Pacheco had said earlier this week that the new charges faced by Anaya show the man doesn’t “get it” and that he should be held on a higher bond now. She said Friday her office had been in contact with the Albuquerque prosecutor’s office about the need to keep Anaya in custody.

Anaya was still in jail as of late Friday night.

Woman cries for help

Police reports and court records show that the woman Anaya has reportedly attacked, who has so far declined to comment when the Journal has tried to reach her through a family member, appears to have done just about everything she can to get help from the criminal justice system to keep Anaya away from her.

She has now reported three attacks to the police, twice sought protection orders from District Court (the first application in January was denied) and then finally left Santa Fe entirely in an attempt to protect herself from Anaya.

Most previous news reports have focused on Anaya’s two most recent alleged attacks, those that took place in February and on Monday.

However, the victim also reported a biting attack by Anaya in November, according to a Santa Fe Police report that the Journal obtained Thursday.

The report states the woman called police to her old home on Entrada de Milagro. She said she and Anaya had been together for four years and had recently broken up, but Anaya asked her if she could visit him at his new place on Chaparron Place so she could cut his hair.

At the home, he forcefully removed the woman’s shoes and threw her cell phone under the bed, the woman alleged. He bit most of the woman’s right toenail off while the woman asked him to stop and tried to get away.

He then asked if the woman would perform sex acts, which she declined, the woman reported. But he pulled a box cutter from his pants pocket, exposed the blade and held it in the direction of her right foot, then performed a sex act, the woman told police.

There’s no record in the state court system’s database indicating Anaya ever faced charges or was booked into jail for this assault, although Santa Fe police spokeswoman Celina Westervelt said police “filed” assault and battery charges and sent them to the district attorney’s office.

In any case, Pacheco said the November case is also now under review for a presentation to a grand jury.

Pacheco said the situation “clearly escalated” with the alleged February attack, where Anaya assaulted the woman when she went to get belongings from the Santa Fe apartment they formerly shared.

“This case was not being ignored or fell through the cracks,” Pacheco said. “Not at all.”

Westervelt referred further questions for police to Capt. Aric Wheeler, but he did not return a call seeking comment Friday.

The woman allegedly being stalked by Anaya filed for a protection order in January based on the November assault. However, state District Judge T. Glenn Ellington denied granting the order at a Jan. 18 hearing, about two weeks before Anaya is accused of next attacking the woman.