Mar. 29—An elderly Santa Fe man badly beaten and forced at gunpoint to write a check for $23,000 during a reported home invasion in 2021 says he is still waiting for police to bring the masked intruder to justice.

He’s hoping it happens before it’s too late for him to participate in the prosecution.

“I am concerned,” John Hennelly, 80, said in a phone interview Thursday.

“I wish they would move ahead because my health is not getting any better,” he continued. “I’m on a one-day-at-a-time schedule. They really hurt me.”

Hennelly, a retired trial attorney, was home alone when someone wearing a ski mask who spoke English with a Mexican accent entered his Encina Road home in central Santa Fe on Sept. 14, 2021, according to court records and a news report from the time.

His wife was out of town.

After waking him up by shining a bright light in his eyes and forcing him to write a check for $23,000 — leaving the recipient line blank — the gun-touting intruder left Hennelly bleeding on the floor of a closet with multiple fractures to his skull. This is where his daughter — who lived in Hennelly’s guesthouse with her then-husband Marc Candelaria — found him later that day.

Authorities later connected Candelaria to the check after he attempted to cash it. They obtained a search warrant for his vehicle, where they found a handwritten note connecting him to the Oct. 30, 2021, robbery of a Bank of America on Paseo de Peralta.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque charged Candelaria with check fraud in the case, and a federal jury deliberated for less than an hour before convicting him of the crime Wednesday, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Candelaria, 36, of Wantagh, N.Y., is in federal custody awaiting sentencing on the conviction, where he faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, the release says.

He’s scheduled to stand trial in connection with the bank robbery May 13, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Tessa DuBerry.

But Hennelly has said Candelaria was not the masked man who held him at gunpoint, leading him and his wife to feel the case is still not completely solved.

“John did not recognize him as the man holding the gun,” Victoria Hennelly said Thursday. “We think [Candelaria] was part of it,” she said, but he may not have acted alone.

“John has always said he can’t identify the person with the gun and the flashlight as Marc,” she added.

It’s unclear whether authorities also believe another person was involved in the home invasion.

“The United States believes that the defendant committed the home invasion,” according to a motion Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel A. Hurtado filed in October.

Hurtado did not respond to a message seeking comment.

“The home invasion falls under the state’s jurisdiction as there in no federal statute for it,” DuBerry said in an email Friday.

“I cannot directly comment on or provide information about a matter that is not a federal issue,” DuBerry wrote. “As a federal agency, we are limited in our ability to address matters outside of our jurisdiction.”

The First Judicial District Attorney’s Office said in an email Thursday the office has not received the case file from Santa Fe police.

Santa Fe police Deputy Chief Matthew Champlin said in an email Thursday “the home invasion of Mr. Hennelly is under active investigation.” He said he could provide no further information about why the investigation hasn’t been completed.

“The case is active and no information that could endanger the integrity of the investigation will be released at this time,” he wrote in a follow-up email Friday. “Charges will be filed when appropriate.”