Madrid cases being negotiated

CLOVIS — During a district court docket call Monday in advance of her trial on burglary charges, it was announced there could possibly be a resolution to 11 cases involving a Clovis woman also accused of setting multiple fires around the region.

Angela Madrid appeared before Judge Drew Tatum with attorney Tye Harmon while Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Stover represented the state in the burglary case, which is slated for jury selection and trial Monday through Wednesday of next week.

Madrid was arrested Feb. 4 on allegations she vandalized and set fire to multiple Clovis businesses. A Curry County sheriff's deputy said he arrested her as she stood in front of a downtown flower shop that was closed for the evening; she had a hammer in one hand and a power sprayer containing gasoline in the other. Madrid also faces charges stemming from allegations she burned automobile dealerships in Clovis and Portales in 2014.

Stover said negotiations are underway to address the 11 cases involving Madrid.

"Mr. (Tye) Harmon and I have been in negotiations," he said. "I've extended an offer and received a counter offer towards a possible global resolution of all the cases. I will need to go back and speak to several people who have been affected to see if it is acceptable to the state or not."

Harmon said his client is prepared to go to trial.

"The defense will be ready on Monday," he said. "I would ask the court, based upon the fact Mr. (Brian) Stover is going to meet with a number of people, if we could have a little longer extension on trying to work this out. There are 11 pending cases we are trying to resolve into one."

Tatum provided Harmon with a deadline of Thursday at 3 p.m. to reach an agreement in which Madrid's cases would be bound, citing the need to call off interpreters for possible jurors in the burglary trial advance.

Stover said the case regarding Monday's docket call focuses upon theft from a local business.

"With regard to this case, the state is prepared to move forward with trial," he said. "There are several witnesses on the state's witness list. I do not have all of them served. I do have enough served that I can go forward and essentially the allegations are burglary of storage units. And these are owners of the storage units. So if I do not have all of the owners, whichever counts involving them would be dismissed. The issue is some of them were Air Force personnel and may have been deployed, so we're not going to seek a continuance. The case set for Monday is several counts of burglary, not having anything to do with any of the arson cases. But it's the one set for trial first. "

Stover said if an agreement is not reached by Thursday at 3 p.m., there will be a trial on each of Madrid's cases.