Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 123, No. 205 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
August 26, 2014
Trial set for alleged Roswell teenage rapist BY JEFF TUCKER RECORD STAFF WRITER
A December trial date has been set for a Roswell man charged with breaking into a neighbor’s home near Spring River Park and Zoo in January and raping and savagely beating a woman before leaving her for dead. Roswell police said Ken-
neth “Ray Ray” Whiteside, 19, most recently of 1503 Pecan Drive, was caught shortly after the crimes in a bloody vehicle and in possession of some of the items he allegedly stole from the victim’s home.
Whiteside is charged with attempt to commit firstdegree murder, aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon, first-degree crimi-
TUESDAY
www.rdrnews.com
nal sexual penetration, first-degree kidnapping and bribery of a witness.
Whiteside, who was 18 years old at the time of the Jan. 4 home invasion and rape, is being held at the Chaves County Adult Detention Center on $500,000 bond. He is set to stand trial Dec. 16 in 5th Judicial District Court in Roswell.
How much for that big one, Mommy?
Bill Moffitt Photo
A watermelon catches the attention of 10-month-old Nahomi Aguirre while her parents, Rutilio Aguirre, left, and Yajaira Perez, look on. Perez is a cashier at Graves Farm and Garden which wasparticipating at the Farmers and Gardeners Market at Fourth and Main streets Saturday. The outdoor market will be open from 7 a.m. until 11 a.m. each Saturday until October.
A pre-trial conference was held July 28 before District Judge Charles Currier, who retired from the bench on Aug. 2. Whiteside’s next scheduled court appearance is another pretrial conference set for 3 p.m. Oct. 20.
Judge John Halverson found probable cause exists to try Whiteside on the multiple felony charges. Police responded to a stabbing call early Jan. 4 along North Pecan Drive, near Spring River Park and Zoo.
Whiteside’s case was bound over from magistrate court to district court on Jan. 6 after Magistrate
Detective Jeffrey Prince of the Roswell Police Department, who wrote the probable cause statement,
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Family members of developmentally disabled New Mexicans suing the state say a Medicaid-assessment system puts recipients of services at risk, the Albuquerque Journal reported Sunday. Attorneys for eight families asked a judge Wednesday to halt a new method for evaluating recipients to deter mine their level of services, which can include 24-hour residential care as well as occupational and speech therapy. More than 4,100 adults are enrolled in the state’s developmentally disabled waiver program, known as the DD waiver. Under the program, Medicaid waives the requirement that an enrollee must be in an institution to be eligible for the funding. The lawsuit was filed in January to restore the services lost by some individuals in the waiver program and stop Gov. Susana
Martinez’s administration from continuing with changes meant to control costs. However, the governor’s office disputes that claim and said the changes such as the evaluation system, which is called the Supports Intensity Scale, were to help people off waiting lists for services. Officials say the waiver program has a waiting list of 6,200. State Department of Health spokesman Kenny Vigil said Sunday that 850 people were taken off the waiting list between 2012 and this year. According to the department, that is an improvement compared with 278 people in the prior three-year period. “The Department of Health is serving more developmentally disabled New Mexicans now than at any other time in our state’s history,” Vigil said in an email to The Associated Press. According to the depart-
Whiteside
said a woman had been
Lawsuit argues evaluations for Medicaid hurt disabled
Running to help out
See TRIAL Page A3
ment, a developmentally disabled client cost an average of more than $74,000 in fiscal year 2009. But for this fiscal year, the cost has been just over $70,000. Furthermore, the agency said the evaluation system doesn’t put those clients at risk.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs state that 700 recipients have challenged the accuracy of their assessments and categories of care they were assigned. The new evaluation system uses “vague, subjective and arbitrary criteria and procedures,” the lawsuit said, and violates the dueprocess rights of recipients.
Once a recipient is assigned care based on his or her evaluation score, “they are tied to a limited base budget and menu of available services without regard to individual medical need,” the lawsuit said. The judge will issue a ruling at a later date.
Video pushes the limits at Blue Holes BY M.E. SPRENGELMEYER THE COMMUNICATOR
SANTA ROSA — A strange bird took flight high above Santa Rosa’s Blue Hole on a Saturday. He blew in from Chicago, accompanied by a crane. He had no feathers, just a tight-fitting Speedo with a Red Bull label on one cheek. Despite what his sponsor’s marketing machine might be saying, 25-yearold David Colturi had no actual wings. Still, with a
few dozen folks staring skyward, he flapped his arms a bit, bounced at the ankles and then vaulted forward, into the ether. In a blink, he pulled his arms to his side and rolled into a mid-air somersault. He was like a flying roly-poly. Gravity did its trick, pulling him down, down, down. He was airborne long enough for onlookers to mutter, “Holy schmoley, look at that …” before Colturi straightened his body, pointed his toes downward and made a nice little
splash into the crystalclear water. A few dozen folks around the Blue Hole burst into applause. With that, an extreme new era in tourism marketing reached Santa Rosa last weekend, as the New Mexico Tourism Department recruited Colturi from the Red Bull clif f diving team to help make a glitzy video that they hope goes “viral” on the Internet, said Cabinet Secretary Monique Jacobson. See VIDEO, Page A3
Survey by health insurance exchange finds little gain from campaign ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A survey commissioned by New Mexico’s health insurance exchange has found that a campaign to publicize the online marketplace for buying coverage under the federal health care law is having little success so far. The survey of 501 uninsured adult New Mexicans found that three of every five didn’t even know what an insurance exchange is, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The survey also found that respondents had little memory of television advertising to encourage visits to
the exchange’s website and that few had heard of live events where insurance shoppers could consult exchange representatives. The exchange awarded a Milwaukee advertising and marketing firm, BVK, an $8.4 million contract last September and a new $6 million contract in July. Martin Hickey, chairman of the health exchange board’s marketing committee, said the survey was intended to help the firm better target its work. “As a board member, I would say I would have expected a higher penetration of awareness of the New Mexi-
co Health Insurance Exchange,” he said. Hickey blamed some of the marketing difficulties on delays in getting the New Mexico exchange established. Future marketing efforts need to target the many different customer niches found in New Mexico, including a focus on providing better communications to Spanish-speaking customers, Hickey said. The latest contract carries “very clear deliverables, milestones and increased scrutiny,” he said.
HIGH 92 LOW 68
• JACK FRANKLIN GOODNIGHT
TODAY’S FORECAST
Randal Seyler Photo
Bob Edwards, left, presents a check for $1,500 from the Roswell Runners Club to Parks Commissioner Mandi Owens, from left, Spring Park Zoo Director Elaine Mayfield and Parks Director Tim Williams on Monday. The money was raised during the 21st annual Spring River Race for the Zoo, held in May.
Area leaders, experts discuss immigration situation near border BY BENJAMIN FISHER SILVER CITY DAILY PRESS
SILVER CITY — A group of church leaders and legal, mental health and education experts gathered together on Aug. 19 to brainstorm possible solutions to the detainment and deportation of and lack of
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A6
• BICENTO “BILLY” ALBAREZ
resources for the immigrant population near the U.S.-Mexico border. Spearheaded by the Southwestern Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the group gathered in the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd to focus on the following goals, according to chapter president Bill Hudson: 1. To
establish better networking among other organizations so they each know what other resources are out there; 2. To develop a brochure, in Spanish, that will let people know what services are available to them; and 3. To expand See BORDER, Page A3
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B6
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
FINANCIAL ..............B4
LOTTERIES .............A2
COMICS .................B5
HOROSCOPES .........A8
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8