Arson suspect faces new fake name charge

Nathan Lederman, The Santa Fe New Mexican
·2 min read

Jul. 28—A man charged with setting a fire at Las Casa Sena earlier this week concealed his true identity from law enforcement during his arrest, Santa Fe police said Thursday.

According to an amended criminal complaint, the alleged arsonist — whose real name is Oryan Yazzie — had a Social Security card belonging to Joseph Duran in his possession when he was accused of breaking into the complex and setting fire to La Casa Sena's storage room.

Yazzie is now awaiting trial in First District Court, where state prosecutors filed a motion for pretrial detention Thursday. He is facing a new concealing identity charge in addition to previous charges of arson, burglary and criminal damage to property.

The amended criminal complaint says Yazzie, 40, is suspected of breaking into La Casa Sena through a second-story window around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. Once inside, it says, he entered a storage room and set three piles of clothes on fire. He then broke the storage room window to get back onto the complex's roof.

At that point, the complaint says, hotel maintenance employee Sergio Ruiz, who happened to be in the Sena Plaza parking lot, heard Yazzie break the second-story window and saw him on the roof.

Ruiz grabbed an ax from his car and began yelling at Yazzie, court documents say. He told Yazzie to remain on the roof until police arrived or he would kill him. Police then came and helped Yazzie down from the roof.

Capt. Jimmy St. James of the state Fire Marshal's Office said Yazzie told police he was under the influence of methamphetamines when he broke into La Casa Sena.

Yazzie told police that, prior to his arrest, he had been running away from a group of approximately 20 unidentified people, according to the amended criminal complaint. Yazzie claimed members of the cartel were after him because he had information on their international drug trade, and that he set fire to La Casa Sena to get law enforcement's attention because he didn't have a cell phone.

Yazzie had been charged with multiple crimes this year prior to Tuesday's incident, according to court records, including criminal sexual contact, battery, non-residential burglary and criminal damage to property. These charges are all pending.