Felon charged with stealing e-bike while armed in Rancho Mirage
City News Service
INDIO, Calif. (KESQ) – A felon accused of stealing an e-bicycle in Rancho Mirage and fleeing from sheriff’s deputies while armed was charged today with burglary and other offenses, while a Coachella woman was charged with conspiring with him.
Ruben Murillo Galindo Jr. and Esther Cordova Montoya, both 42, were arrested last month following a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department investigation that began in early June.
Both Galindo and Montoya were charged with the felony burglary count, but Galindo alone was charged with being a felon in possession of a loaded firearm, resisting arrest and a sentence-enhancing allegation of perpetrating a crime while on bail. Montoya alone was charged with parole violations.
Galindo pleaded not guilty Thursday during an arraignment before Superior Court Judge Arthur Hester, who scheduled a felony settlement conference for Aug. 18 at the Larson Justice Center in Indio. The defendant is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
Montoya, who is free on a $35,000 bond, is slated for arraignment on Sept. 8.
According to sheriff’s Sgt. James Mills, on the morning of June 7, Galindo allegedly broke into a residence on Via Del Rossi in Rancho Mirage, removed the owner’s e-bike and fled, allegedly with Montoya’s help.
Security surveillance video cameras at the property recorded the theft from beginning to end, Mills alleged.
He said Burglary Suppression Team investigators identified Montoya first, and she was taken into custody without incident after a search warrant was served at her residence on July 25 in the 51400 block of Ponderosa Drive. She posted bond within a couple of days and was released from jail.
Galindo was identified as the alleged burglar less than a week later, and he was tracked down in the area of Seventh Street and Orchard Avenue in Coachella on July 31.
Mills said when deputies confronted him, he tried to flee on a bike, discarding a “bag containing a loaded firearm and ammunition” in the process.
Deputies took him into custody without further incident moments later.
Details on the defendants’ prior convictions were not available.