DA seeks jail time for sexual offender

By Jim Tiffin
Staff Writer

Jonathan Mayher

GRANTS — The 13th Judicial District Attorney's Office is seeking jail time for a man who pleaded guilty in a September 2005 plea agreement to two counts of criminal sexual penetration earlier that year in addition to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Jonathan Mayher, 21, currently in custody in the Cibola County Detention Center, was arrested in March 2005 during spring break after committing criminal sexual penetration with one 14-year-old female in Grants. Two weeks later he committed the same crime to a second 14-year-old female, after being released by the court on his first arrest.

Mayher is a registered sexual offender in the state of Washington where he raped a 12-year-old female in Snohomish County in April 2001, Deputy District Attorney Randolph Collins said.

Around 2001 or 2002, Mayher moved to Grants where he did not have to register as a sexual offender and in the space of 3.5 years had committed two more of the same types of crimes, Collins said.

Collins presented a memo to Judge John Pope in district court in Grants on Monday during a sentencing hearing.

That memo lays out the district attorney's reasons for locking Mayher up instead of allowing him to be given probation and allowed back on the streets.

Collins asks Pope to order Mayher to serve 4.5 years in prison, 18 months for each of the felonies to which he pleaded guilty and the contributing, to run consecutively.

The memo asks the court to rule Mayher is a sex offender and to register as such, and that any parole sentencing be not less than five years or more than 20. His parole should be supervised, Collins states.

The memo states that Mayher's lawyer is afraid Mayher may be the victim of sexual assault while in prison if incarcerated, but no statistics or other analysis indicts that might occur.

"Instead, Defendant's counsel's argument is that for his client's sake our community should in essence, shoulder the risk to their children that Defendant's probation would impose on them. The community should shoulder this risk so that defendant will not have to bear unknown potential adverse conditions of prison," the memo states.

" ... the State maintains ... it is Defendant who should bear the risk of prison. It is, after all, a risk he created by the crimes he committed," the memo states.

The defense's psychologist, Moss Aubrey Ph.D., testified that Mayher poses a "moderate" risk of committing the same type of crime again, according to the memo.

Aubrey also testified that Mayher "minimally" acknowledged molesting female children and according to Aubrey's tests, blames the victims for his wrongful deeds, Collins writes in his memo.

Thirteenth Judicial District Attorney Lemuel Martinez said Mayher should go to jail for his crimes.

"Because of my teaching background I have always tried to protect children from those who would take advantage of them," Martinez said.

"Those who do take advantage and are brought to our offices are only asking for jail.

"I want to send a message that you cannot take advantage sexually of our children and if you do, you probably will be punished severely," he said.

— To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: tiffin.independent@yahoo.com.