BY MAIRE O’NEILL
Following a preliminary hearing Friday in Los Alamos Magistrate Court, Mark Henins has been bound over by Judge Pat Casados to First Judicial District Court on charges of criminal trespassing and possession of a controlled substance.
Assistant District Attorney Kent Wahlquist called three witnesses to the stand, Marcus Hall, Los Police Cpl. Sheldon Simpson and Cpl. Michael Weiss. Hall testified about issues Henins had at an apartment complex managed by Hall at 3301 Canyon Road which ended in Henins being issued a no trespass notice in March.
Hall said it seems like every time Henins is on the property he is having problems with one or two of the tenants. He said Henins would come knocking on the door of his house, would call him, text him and send him letters. He said if anything ever happened to him or his son he wanted to make sure the letters and texts were clearly documented.
Hall said he found Henins walking around the property June 21 and going into and coming out of an apartment. He said Henins told him he would have to call law enforcement to get him off the property.
Corporal Simpson testified that he was dispatched because of a call stating that Henins was trespassing. He said he made contact with Henins who was arguing with Hall and was “pretty agitated”. Simpson said he placed Henins in investigative detention and that he knew from previous experiences that he was trespassed from that property.
Corporal Weiss said when he arrived he took Henins into custody. When Henins was patted down, the officers found a brown package containing a plastic bag with a white powder which field-tested to be methamphetamine.
When Henins testified, he told the Court that when he was trespassed from the apartment complex he tried to sort it out with Hall and Hall’s father but that they were “uncommunicative”. He discussed tenant rights cases and the “necessity law”.
Henins said there was an incident three years ago that the Court needed to be told about. He said the truth had to be told about it because it was going to be “the larger concern here”.
“On the 20th of June 2015 I told police repeatedly you are encouraging behavior. They would not listen, they were uncomfortable listening to me. I’m telling the Court now you are encouraging a behavior, to listen to me or you’ll have repercussions like last time. June 20, 2015 was a bad time for me. I feared for my life. I was traumatized for two days. It was a bad time for everyone. It was a bad time for the police, for the County, it probably cost $2,000 at least,” Henins said.
Judge Casados said based on the testimony and the evidence presented she found probable cause to believe that the crimes has been committed and that Henins was the person who committed them.
The two charges have been filed in First Judicial District Court, however no date has yet been set for arraignment.