On Wednesday, a federal judge told a former Walsenburg police officer he was releasing her on bail after she pleaded guilty to a heroin charge partly to spare her child — then sitting in court — from the trauma of seeing her arrested.
On Thursday, the ex-officer, Gloria Evangeline Suazo, 31, was arrested for allegedly selling crack cocaine out of a truck in Pueblo with both of her kids in the car, The Pueblo Chieftain and KRDO-TV Channel 13 reported. Pueblo police arrested her in front of both children.
At Suazo’s , Denver U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Moore had cautioned Suazo, who faces at least five years and up to 40 years in prison on the heroin charge, that if she violated her release conditions, he would lock her up.
Suazo sobbed and appologized to Moore for crying in court.
The judge told Moore that because she had appeared at all her court hearings, didn’t have a prior criminal record — and because her son, who appeared to be about 5 years old, was in the courtroom — he would release her on $20,000 bail.
Suazo originally was arrested April 16.
Pueblo police were patrolling a neighborhood where there had been an ongoing gang war between the Bessemer Spruce Locos and the Aces at 1:15 a.m. April 16, according to court records. There had been six drive-by shootings in two weeks.
Suazo’s husband, Jerold Suazo, a reputed member of the Bessemer gang, was at Sharky’s Bar, a gang hangout, according to the records.
He was caught in possession of a gun and arrested. From jail, he called Suazo and said he had “six or seven large” and “brownies” in his apartment, referring to cash and heroin, court records say.
Suazo drove to the apartment in Pueblo and retrieved 189 grams of heroin and more than $6,000, the records show.
