A Bisbee man arrested in 2019 for fleeing police and then later twice released from jails due to judges in Cochise County and Pima County apparently not knowing of an earlier bail order remains the subject of a nationwide arrest warrant issued more than six months ago.
Alexis Enriquez Martan was indicted by a county grand jury in 2019 on felony endangerment and unlawful flight from a law enforcement officer. While awaiting trial in that case, Martan was released from jails two times last year despite a court order requiring a $10,000 bond that should have been posted first in the 2019 case.
On March 15, Judge Laura Cardinal of the Cochise County Superior Court ordered that nothing further will occur in the case until Martan, 29, is apprehended. She also affirmed a full extradition arrest warrant she issued late last year which now requires Martan to be held without bond once taken into custody.
In the warrant, Martan is described as a Hispanic male, 5 foot 10 inches tall, and weighing 220 pounds. Anyone with information on Martan’s current whereabouts is asked to contact the multi-agency dispatch center in Cochise County at 520-803-3555.
Court records show the felony charges against Martan stem from an early morning Sept. 19, 2019 incident in which Bisbee police officers were dispatched to a gas station after a man -later identified as Martan- appeared to be passed out in a vehicle at the gas pumps.
The officers spent two minutes knocking on the car’s windows before Martan became aware of their presence, according to Officer Jay Ritchie’s report. After refusing to open the door or roll down the window, Martan allegedly drove forward and stopped at the next gas pump.
Martan was told to exit the vehicle but drove away instead. Ritchie’s report notes the officers, who were both in fully marked patrol vehicles, activated their lights and sirens but Martan did not pull over. He crossed into Mexico at the Naco Port of Entry.
Later that day Martan was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents trying to cross back into the United States, where he was arrested by Ritchie and transported to the Cochise County jail.
Martan posted a court-ordered $5,000 surety bond in order to be released from jail pending trial. One condition of his pretrial release was to not engage in criminal activity.
But on Dec. 5, 2019 Martan was arrested in Pima County on charges of resisting arrest and possession of drug paraphernalia. After learning of the new criminal charges, Cardinal exonerated Martan’s $5,000 bond in February 2020 and ordered it replaced by a $10,000 bond.
The plan, according to court records, was to ensure Martan was not released from the Pima County jail without first posting a bond in the Cochise County case.
That release occurred March 20, 2020 after Marten pleaded guilty in Pima County and was sentenced to time already served in jail. Martan was free to leave as there was no record at the Pima County jail of the $10,000 bond order from Cochise County.
After his release Martan took part in a May 2020 hearing about his competency to participate in his scheduled September 2020 trial. There is no record of anyone questioning his out of custody status during that hearing.
Then in June the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office cited Martan for possession of marijuana, which he did not immediately report to his attorney. The new charges did not stop Martan from appearing in Cardinal’s courtroom for an August 2020 pretrial hearing, but a few weeks later he failed to appear in the Bisbee Justice Court for his marijuana charge.
The justice of the peace issued an arrest warrant which was executed in mid-September. Martan was in custody Sept. 18 when Cochise County jail personnel transported him to superior court for a plea conference in the 2019 case.
But Martan did not show up for a Sept. 25 hearing to accept or reject a plea offer. By then the warrant in the marijuana case had been quashed and Martan had been released from the jail on his recognizance, per court order.
Cardinal allowed the defense attorney to withdraw from the case during the hearing and then ordered the nationwide arrest warrant. More than six months later, Martan remains a fugitive, leading Cardinal to officially put the case on hold.