Las Animas County Sheriff deputy named in excessive force lawsuit previously convicted of crimes

LAS ANIMAS COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- Through employment records, 13 Investigates learned one of the deputies named in a federal lawsuit accusing the Las Animas County Sheriff's Office of excessive force has a criminal past spanning decades. The lawsuit alleges that he never should've been hired by the sheriff's office to begin with.

The lawsuit claims Las Animas County Sheriff Deputies Mikhail Noel and Henry Trujillo tased Kenneth Espinoza about 35 times, despite him being unarmed and not breaking the law.

“There was no reason, no legal justification for them to make him move,” said Kevin Mehr, Espinoza’s attorney. “He was doing absolutely nothing wrong.”

The deputies claim Espinoza was disrupting a traffic stop on Nov. 29, 2022, when he parked behind a deputy that had pulled over his son.

Lt. Henry Trujillo is seen on body-worn camera footage questioning why Espinoza was still there, saying they don't like when people pull up behind them and that they get "paid to pull people over" and told Espinoza that he "needs to leave now or get charged, it's that easy."

Trujillo is heard telling Espinoza he has five seconds to leave and that he "needs to go" before saying "fine" and walking away.

When Trujillo walks away, Noel walks up to Espinoza and tells him to "leave, leave." However, as Espinoza begins driving away, Noel begins screaming "Stay, stay," and tries to open the driver's side door of the moving truck.

Noel then pulls out his service pistol and points it at Espinoza's face. Espinoza begins to back up, saying he's trying to move off the road while Noel and Trujillo point their weapons at his face - screaming at him to get "out of the [explicit] car."

“I can still see them pointing a gun at my father and just watching time stop, feeling everything just leave my body,” said Nathaniel Espinoza, Kenneth’s son.

Espinoza is then forced out of his car, handcuffed, and placed in a law enforcement vehicle. During the altercation, Espinoza’s attorney claims he was tased about 35 times, including one time in the face.

The agency’s taser policy prohibits deputies from using their taser against a subject who is “in a restraint device and is only offering verbal noncompliance or passive resistance.”

Espinoza was charged with resisting arrest and assault on a peace officer, but all of those charges were dismissed.

“We were the only cool heads in the situation,” Nathaniel said. “If we wouldn't have had cool heads, it would have probably ended in death.”

Last week when the body camera footage was released, the Las Animas County Sheriff's Office refuted the claims levied by Espinoza and his lawyer. The department claims Espinoza was only tased once and was never hit by deputies. At the time, the deputies were still on active duty and the agency didn’t open an investigation.

However, on Tuesday when the lawsuit was filed, Las Animas County Sheriff Derek Navarette said an internal investigation is currently being conducted by an outside agency and the deputies involved have been placed on administrative leave.

Only part of the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the United States District Court of Colorado asked for relief of damages for the November altercation. The majority of the lawsuit claims the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office perpetuates a violent environment and lacks discipline.

“This has been a repeated pattern with this particular department,” Mehr said. “They know better. They've been sued before.”

Twelve days before the incident, the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office settled an excessive use of force lawsuit involving the same two deputies. In that case, Noel and Trujillo are accused of handcuffing a deaf woman to a hospital bed to transport her to a mental health facility. The deputies then forcefully removed the only person in the room who can speak American Sign Language (ASL) and translate for the woman.

Trujillo is the third in command at the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office, but the lawsuit claims he shouldn’t even be employed in law enforcement.

To be a peace officer in Colorado, an applicant must be certified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board. In 1998, Trujillo was convicted of harassment. According to Colorado law, this conviction would require the POST board to deny an application to become a certified peace officer.

“I do not believe that he is legally eligible to be certified,” Mehr said. “He has essentially been impersonating a police officer for the past 21 years.”

Trujillo had other run-ins with the law. According to his criminal record, Trujillo has been charged and convicted of multiple crimes involving violence and weapons.

In 1997 and 1998, Trujillo was convicted of disorderly conduct with a weapon and misdemeanor harassment. In 2006, he pled guilty to disorderly conduct, and three years later pled guilty to harassment and disorderly conduct again.

Trujillo has also been subject to restraining orders in five separate cases from 2003 to 2020, including two for alleged domestic abuse. One of those protection orders barred him from possessing firearms, according to the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act. Yet he remained employed with the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office.

Trujillo worked three different stints for the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office. According to employment records, he left in 2002 to join the Trinidad Police Department, where he was forced to resign for multiple misconduct violations.

Trujillo was able to join the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office again in 2005. Four years later he was forced to resign in 2009 for criminal charges he pled guilty to that were later deferred, according to his employment records.

Despite his forced resignations and criminal history, Trujillo was hired back for two more stints with the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office. The lawsuit alleges the agency failed to perform background checks during the hiring process.

“LACSD either failed to do a background check into his employment records from the City of Trinidad, or wholly ignored them when he was rehired by LACSD in 2005, and again in 2010 and 2016,” the lawsuit states.

Las Animas County Sheriff Derek Navarette declined to comment about Trujillo’s history and the agency’s hiring practices.

“The actions of this department are unacceptable,” Mehr said. “The cover-up that they've done, the failure to do the required reporting to the state is unacceptable. We're not going to stop until we get justice for Kenneth.”

Trujillo, Noel, a Las Animas County Undersheriff, Sheriff Navarette, the sheriff's office, and the Las Animas County Board of County Commissioners are all named in the lawsuit.

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