ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A woman is slated to go to trial soon on accusations of taking videos of a 13-year-old girl being sexually abused, and then posting it online. But that suspect who’s been out of jail awaiting trial is now in trouble with the law again. The District Attorney’s office is going to try again to change Yarelis Cespedes’s conditions of release.
Cespedes, now 23 years old, was arrested back in 2019 after investigators say she recorded a man in the back seat of an SUV sexually abusing a 13-year-old, then shared it online. She was charged with manufacturing and distributing child pornography along with other charges.
At her arrest, the state argued she should stay locked up until trial but Judge Brett Loveless disagreed. “She has nothing, not even a traffic ticket on her record,” said Judge Loveless at the time. “There’s nothing for the court to base, at least at this point, that she does present a danger going forward.”
In February, she went on trial for the charges but a judge ruled some of the testimony might be prejudicial against Cespedes and declared a mistrial. The District Attorney’s Office is re-trying the case.
Since the mistrial, the prosecution has asked twice to review the conditions of release. They say she violated a restraining order.
In September, prosecutors asked a judge to put Cespedes on a GPS bracelet after she failed to show up for court hearings over a case tied to child porn accusations. “We ask that she be placed in custody until a GPS monitor is available so that we know where she’s at; be able to monitor her,” said a prosecutor in September. A judge ultimately denied that request.
Now, Cespedes was arrested on November 3. She is accused of shoplifting more than $3,000 of merchandise from Sephora at Coronado Center. The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office says she was working with two other people, one of them being a 16-year-old.
Cespedes was released on her own recognizance on Saturday. Monday, prosecutors in her child porn case are asking for a judge to reconsider the conditions of release and put her behind bars until her trial begins.
Yarelis Cespedes’s trial is set to begin on November 27. No hearing has been set to review conditions of release.