Two suspects sought in trafficking case released from jail days before new charges filed
A man and a woman were released from the San Miguel County Detention Center just days before prosecutors filed new charges against them, records show.
Police are now searching for the duo, accusing one of them of trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin.
Officers with the Las Vegas Police Department arrested 49-year-old Dominick F.S. Quintana and 43-year-old Jeroldine Montaño following a traffic stop March 19.
Police initially stopped a woman walking near an Allsup’s on Grand Avenue, believing she had an active arrest warrant, according to an affidavit filed in San Miguel Magistrate Court March 31. While officers awaited confirmation of the warrant, the woman got into the back seat of a gray Dodge Charger, which fled north on Seventh Street.
The Charger was later located on Douglas Avenue near Seventh, but as officers approached it, the driver again fled.
Police later stopped the Charger in the 2500 block of North Gonzales and located the woman in the back seat. Montaño was driving, and Quintana was in the passenger seat, according to the affidavit.
When officers approached Quintana, he had an open can of beer in his lap, according to the affidavit. Police determined the woman in the back seat did not have a warrant, but arrested Montaño and Quintana on active arrest warrants.
While preparing the car to be towed, police located a bag with pills suspected to be fentanyl in the passenger door inside a “clear plastic bag with several pill tablets with an ‘M’ imprint on them,” according to the affidavit. The vehicle was sealed with evidence tape and towed as officers awaited a search warrant.
Quintana was booked on a warrant for failing to appear for a Feb. 1 pretrial hearing in a case involving misdemeanor traffic offenses. He was booked into SMCDC March 19.
On March 21, officers executed a search warrant on the Charger and located a pill bottle containing heroin and methamphetamine, packaged in “individual packages,” according to the affidavit. Officers also located more fentanyl pills with the “same markings” of prescription OxyContin pills, with an “M” on one side and the number 30 on the other.
Inside a wallet with Montaño’s personal identification, police located methamphetamine “rolled up in a dollar bill,” according to the affidavit.
During a March 21 hearing, Judge Melanie Rivera set bond for Quintana at $2,000. He was released from SMCDC just after 9 a.m. the next day.
Jail records show that Montaño was booked into SMCDC March 19 on a warrant for failing to appear in court or for failing to pay court fines; however, New Mexico court records do not indicate she had an active warrant prior to March 19, and records indicate she did not appear before a judge in regards to her March 19 arrest. She was released from SMCDC just after 7 p.m. March 21.
On March 31, prosecutors charged Quintana with three counts of trafficking controlled substances, and Montaño with one count of felony possession of a controlled substance.
Arrest warrants were issued for Quintana and Montaño on March 31; neither were in custody as of this writing.
