Darrell Perez, a Cortez man suspected of burglarizing a home east of Cortez in June and taking meth into the Montezuma County Detention Center in October, pleaded guilty Thursday in 22nd Judicial District Court to criminal trespass and possession of contraband in a detention facility.
Twenty-second Judicial District Chief Judge Douglas Walker accepted the plea agreement, which dismissed four other felonies: second-degree burglary, a Class 4 felony; theft between $5,000 and $20,000, a Class 5 felony; introduction of contraband to a detention facility, a Class 4 felony; and possession of a schedule II controlled substance, a Class 4 drug felony.
Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 21. Perez faces possible penalties of one to three years with the Colorado Department of Corrections for second-degree criminal trespass, a Class 5 felony, and between one year and 18 months in state prison for possession of contraband in a detention facility, a Class 6 felony.
Perez is one of six co-defendants in a burglary case that involved repeated trips to an unsecured property east of Cortez over the course of about two weeks in June. The co-defendants allegedly stole minibikes, power tools, farm equipment totaling an estimated value of $7,720. They are in various stages of court proceedings.
Then, on Oct. 30, Perez bonded out of jail and a bail bondsman drove him to a Wells Fargo bank where the bondsman expected to receive payment. According to an interview with the bondsman and a Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office incident report, the bondsman booked Perez back into jail.
An inmate reported that Perez was consuming meth in a cell. A strip search found a small black bag of meth in his clothing.
sdolan@the-journal.com
