Judges bow out of Coleman case

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Attempts to hold a preliminary hearing for local Indian trader Steve Coleman in the city's magistrate court are on hold.

Magistrate court officials said Wednesday that all three of the magistrate judges in town have recused themselves from hearing the case, forcing the courts to go outside Gallup to find a judge.

Coleman was supposed to have a preliminary hearing on the charges that he had threatened a Jamestown resident, Joe Diaz, with a gun in 2005. That hearing was scheduled for two weeks ago, but it had to be postponed by Magistrate Judge John Carey.

Diaz, in the incident report filed on March 22, 2005, told sheriff deputies that he was unloading items from his vehicle that was parked in his yard when he saw a red pickup stop in front of his house.

He saw a man in the driver's seat and the man was wearing a hat and looking at him. It wasn't until the man took off his hat, Diaz told police, that he saw it was Coleman and that he was pointing a blue gun out of the window at him. "Diaz said he was caught in the open with his arms full of boxes and there was nothing he could do," the police report stated.

It was at that point, according to Diaz, that Coleman pulled the gun back into his truck and drove away very slowly, stopping twice on the road as he left.

Since Carey canceled the preliminary hearing on the case, he and the other two magistrate judges have all declined to hear it. None of the judges gave any reason for that decision.

Magistrate court officials said the case has now been sent up to the district court so that a new judge will be located. What probably will happen is a magistrate judge in Farmington will be assigned to hear the case, and that person will travel to Gallup for the hearings.

This decision does not affect the two cases Coleman currently has in the district court where he is charged with attempted arson on the Connections building and firing shots into the unoccupied home of a McKinley County deputy.

No date has been set for either trial in district court.

Coleman still remains under house arrest, required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor his movements.