Santa Fe woman kidnapped, beaten over claim of stolen money


Jan. 29—Santa Fe police say a woman survived a violent kidnapping that unfolded over the weekend, and two men accused in the incident face a string of felony counts.

The woman and her family members described a hostage situation in which the woman was beaten and held at gunpoint as her former boyfriend and another man demanded money they claimed she had stolen from them, court records say. Police noted the woman sustained injuries from multiple beatings.

Jovanny Aniles, 20, and Elijah Gallegos, 18, who were arrested Sunday, are accused of breaking into the woman’s home early Friday morning, according to arrest warrant affidavits filed Monday in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court. A day later, police allege, Aniles and Gallegos ordered the woman into a vehicle and held her hostage as they tried to extort money from her family.

Aniles is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and extortion. Gallegos faces counts of accessory to kidnapping and accessory to extortion. Both men might also face counts of resisting or evading officers, police said in a news release issued Monday afternoon.

Officers arrested the pair Sunday at a Speedway gas station on Sawmill Road. Both men initially ran from officers, the affidavits state, but eventually were captured and booked into the Santa Fe County jail.

The woman told police the incident began when she woke up early Friday morning and rolled over in bed to see a bright flashlight attached to a gun shining in her face, and she heard Aniles, her ex-boyfriend, “yelling at her not to make a sound or else he would shoot her,” the affidavits state.

Gallegos held the woman’s boyfriend at gunpoint while Aniles pistol-whipped her, according to the affidavits.

Aniles beat her with a handgun in one hand and brass knuckles in the other, while demanding money, she told police.

Investigators recovered bullet casings from the ground outside the woman’s residence as well as bullet holes in the side of the home, which sits near Frenchy’s Field Park off Agua Fría Street, police wrote in the affidavit. They also noted damage to a doorway, indicating forced entry into the home.

The next day, the woman told police, Gallegos and Aniles drove up to her as she was walking on Cerrillos Road and ordered her to get into a white pickup. After picking up another woman at a gas station, the men drove to the home of the victim’s mother, according to the affidavits.

Her mother was working in the front yard when the pickup pulled into her driveway. She saw Aniles holding her daughter by the hair and aiming a gun at her daughter’s head, she said, according to the affidavits.

Aniles was demanding money, the mother said, but she had only $6 in cash to give him. Aniles beat her daughter with the gun, and then the pickup drove away, the mother told police.

The victim’s grandmother received a call from Aniles, who said her granddaughter owed him $800, the grandmother told police in an an interview. She said she offered to give him $200 that day.

Minutes after the phone call, the grandmother told police, a woman knocked at her door and demanded the cash. After counting the money, she realized she had only $160, the grandmother said, but she handed it to the woman. Afterwards, the affidavits state, the grandmother received another call from Aniles, “saying that she would never see her granddaughter again because they called the cops.”

Gallegos and Aniles drove the pickup to the Camel Tracks shooting range on Santa Fe County Road 62, according to the affidavits. The two women began to fight in the vehicle, the victim said, so Gallegos stopped the truck, and Aniles pulled her out.

Aniles and the other woman beat her and kicked her and then left her there, the victim said.

She told police she walked for two hours before someone eventually gave her a ride to the Interfaith Shelter at Pete’s Place. She was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center for treatment of her injuries.

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