SANTA FE (NM)
Santa Fe New Mexican
February 11, 2019
Inmates were asked to clear a room at the Santa Fe County jail Monday afternoon for the video arraignment of an 81-year-old former priest charged with raping and kidnapping a 6-year boy in the late 1980s.
Unlike other inmates, Marvin Archuleta’s hands were unbound. He leaned heavily on a walker as he entered the room, his sliver-white hair parted to the side. Slowly, he lowered himself into his seat, adjusted the walker, cleared his throat and straightened the collar of his khaki jumpsuit. He looked into the camera lens, then down.
Santa Fe Magistrate Judge David Segura addressed Archuleta’s televised image through the window of a Sony television set.
“A criminal complaint has been filed against you,” Segura began. The judge read aloud the statutes that govern first-degree criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13, kidnapping or unlawful confinement resulting in great bodily harm.
Archuleta, who served as a priest for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe for more than a decade, was arrested Friday in Albuquerque on charges he raped and confined a first-grader at Holy Cross Catholic School in Santa Cruz. If convicted, he could face up to 60 years in state prison.
Monday marked his first court appearance.
Archuleta bobbed his head to his chest and said “yes” to confirm he understood the charges. He told the judge he would like time to arrange his affairs and finances for his studio apartment in Albuquerque.
But Segura told the former priest Magistrate Court has no legal authority over his release and the conditions will be set during a detention hearing in District Court. The state Attorney General’s Office filed a motion Monday asking Archuleta be kept in custody without bond until trial; he will face a District Court judge within the next five days on the state’s custody request.
“We believe this individual is a danger to the community,” said David Carl, a spokesman with the Attorney General’s Office. “And no conditions of release would have protected the community from him.”
The motion to keep Archuleta confined argues the former priest already has proven himself a threat to the community and an international flight risk.
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