Case against public prosecutor Montezuma stalls; New investigations begin

Blood test results and charges pending in accident case; After a text message was sent to the reporter, a new investigation was launched

Possible drunken driving charges against Montezuma County District Attorney Christian Hatfield have stalled while the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office awaits the results of a blood sample taken the night of his Aug. 30 crash outside Farmington US Highway 64 was secured.

And in Montezuma County, Sheriff Steven Nowlin said a new investigation was launched this week after Hatfield participated in a text thread that included offensive, inaccurate and sexist comments against a reporter The diary.

In Farmington, the delays were blamed in part on a staffing shortage.

“The Sheriff’s Office is still awaiting blood results from the state laboratory for possible criminal charges,” said Sheriff Shane Ferrari Tricity record in an email on Wednesday. “I don’t have a timeline for when we’ll get those back.”

A request to inspect public records by the Tricity record On Oct. 13, he requested correspondence, including emails, text messages and letters, between the sheriff’s office and the San Juan County District Attorney’s Office involving Hatfield and the crash.

According to emails obtained from the Tricity record, Officials determined the blood sample had been “sitting in the fridge” since Aug. 30 because the request did not make it through the law enforcement records management system for processing.

According to an email from Evidence Manager Elijah Montoya of the Sheriff’s Office, the blood work was “checked in and ready to go” at 8:39 a.m. on Oct. 4.

The diary And Tricity record also requested copies of dashboard camera and lapel camera videos from the accident on September 3 and again on October 13. The wishes have not yet been fulfilled.

Ferrari attributed the delay to staffing shortages in its office, which only has one full-time employee responsible for processing records requests.

“We normally employ four full-time staff and have now increased that to five to keep up with demand,” he said.

“Like other law enforcement agencies, this comes at a difficult time as we see a continued increase in requests for records, particularly for video, which is labor intensive,” Ferrari said. “Our personnel situation is improving.”

On October 23rd The diary Newspaper in Cortez and the Tricity record in Farmington also requested copies of the blood warrant, search warrant and arrest warrant for Hatfield.

“After reviewing your application, it was determined that these documents are currently pending. “I will continue to research and provide the answer as soon as it is available,” said Jennifer Coponiti, clerk for the sheriff’s office.

This week, amid uncertainty over the delayed documents, Hatfield launched an attack on reporting.

According to a freelance reporter at The diary After reaching out to Hatfield for comment on the status of this case, he indicated in a text message on Oct. 17 that he would not respond directly to the reporter.

“The last article about me was so poorly written and inaccurate that we should stick to press releases,” Hatfield said in a text message to the reporter.

On Oct. 22, Hatfield’s text messages became more aggressive, and a third party, identified only by a phone number, joined in. The 2024 voter registration list linked that number, along with an address, to retired Durango defensive lineman Thomas Williamson.

The reporter from The diary was added to Hatfield’s text thread.

Hatfield began by attacking the reporter’s values.

“Until I asked around, I didn’t know you were an ultra-right-wing Christian nationalist… who went to Jerry Falwell’s ‘college.'” I should have been less naïve in assuming journalistic integrity. Since then I have read your poorly written, intellectually confused Federalist editorials. Ballantine used to have standards. My parents wrote for the Boston Globe.”

“What did she do wrong?” asked the third. “Didn’t she just read the police report?”

“She said there were drugs and alcohol in my car,” Hatfield wrote to the third party. “The report said no alcohol, no drugs, except for a full bottle of Ambien that I filled the day before.”

The third person in Hatfield’s text thread, presumably Williamson, then added a sexual slur to his response:

“She’s just creative. You’re obviously not God-fearing and that might explain it… Demand (c**t) a retreat.”

Hatfield ended the thread by saying, “I personally pulled every item in the junkyard out of my car.”

According to the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, a search warrant was still outstanding, but Ferrari confirmed that Hatfield could have removed items from his vehicle because the sheriff’s office did not seize the car as “evidence.”

“So it’s entirely possible that he went there and took out all his belongings,” Ferrari said

And New Mexico State Police Officer Joseph Cloyd’s report states that evidence of alcohol and a prescribed sedative were found at the scene of the accident.

“I discovered an open container of an alcoholic beverage sitting on the passenger floor labeled “Mexican Lager.” The container was dented from the sides but still contained residual liquid,” he wrote in the police report.

Cloyd also stated that next to this open container labeled “Ambien” was a “pill bottle containing multiple pills” with Hatfield’s name on it.

Cloyd stated in the report that “there was evidence of alcohol and/or drug intoxication in Driver 1 (Hatfield) and Driver 1 failed to maintain lanes in the vehicle, resulting in an accident.”

The Tricity record called and left phone messages for Hatfield and Williamson. They didn’t answer.

Williamson responded via email Friday after this article was published. He stated that he apologized to the reporter in the text thread after realizing that the reporter was included in the thread.

This text read: “I am applying for my language. I thought I was just talking to Hatfield.”

Hatfield, a former defense attorney who worked in Farmington and Durango, was appointed district attorney in 2023 by Gov. Jared Polis. He is running as a Democrat against Republican Jeremy Reed, a former deputy district attorney under Hatfield.

This article was updated on October 25 to report that Thomas Williamson is a retired lawyer and to include text in the thread apologizing for his language.

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