SANTA FE – A man has pleaded guilty in a case involving the fatal beating and torture of 13-year-old Jeremiah Valencia in 2017.
Jordan Nunez, 21, entered his guilty plea in a First Judicial District courtroom in Santa Fe on Friday to reckless permitting child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence. He faces up to 24 years in prison.
Valencia’s body was found inside a plastic container in a roadside grave near Nambe in January 2018. He died after months of abuse inflicted upon him by Nunez and Nunez’s father Thomas Ferguson and Tracy Ann Pena, Valencia’s mother and Ferguson’s girlfriend, prosecutors said.
Investigators said the boy was beaten with brass knuckles, choked, confined to a dog kennel, urinated on and forced to wear diapers, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Nunez participated in the ongoing abuse that led to the boy’s death and watched his father viciously beat Valencia several days after Thanksgiving 2017, Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Padgett Macias said.
“Despite the opportunities to do so, (Nunez) failed to stop Ferguson and failed to intervene to protect Jeremiah,” Macias said. “And Jeremiah died as a result.”
First Judicial District Judge Matthew Wilson told the court he expects a three-day sentencing hearing in June.
Ferguson died of an apparent suicide in April 2018 at the Santa Fe County jail, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Pena reached a plea deal with prosecutors in November 2018, agreeing to a 12-year sentence for her part in the death of her child in exchange for her testifying against Nunez at trial.
