Two grand juries in the 12th Judicial District indicted five members of the Costilla County Sheriff’s Office in separate cases on Thursday involving improperly collecting remains and assaulting a citizen.

Former Costilla County Sheriff Danny Sanchez and former Deputy Keith Schultz faced indictments after allegedly putting human remains into a paper bag, leaving some behind and failing to notify the coroner. On March 30, Joe Smith was sworn in as Sanchez’s successor.

Meanwhile, Undersheriff Cruz Soto, Sgt. Caleb Sanchez, the sheriff’s son, and Deputy Roland Riley face charges for allegedly unlawfully breaking a rib of a Costilla County resident, who was free to go after suffering a mental health crisis.

Wild Horse Mesa remains

The indictment alleges that Danny Sanchez and Schultz responded to a report of human remains in the Mild Horse Mesa on Oct. 2, 2024. But they allegedly decided to collect the skull and leave the rest, causing the teeth and other remains to be lost.

Danny Sanchez had been at the scene briefly but was allegedly more intrigued by “looking for arrowheads than investigating the human remains,” according to the indictment.

Schultz then allegedly put the paper bag containing the bones he’d collected on his desk while he responded to another call. Witnesses described deputies in the office failing to track the location of the skull, notify the coroner, write reports and collect evidence in a forensically sound manner, the indictment states.

Schultz wrote a police report for the Oct. 2, 2024, incident, but it failed to document “a large number” of remains. It was written on Dec. 31, 2024, and approved on March 18, 2025.

A redacted witness testified to the grand jury that losing the dental evidence was “especially egregious,” and the investigative efforts by the Sheriff’s Office were “far below the standard of care,” according to the indictment.

Furthermore, a coroner from a neighboring county told jurors that law enforcement removing remains without permission of the coroner is a statutory violation, barring extreme circumstances like a natural disaster.

That coroner later handled the remains that were collected in Costilla County and, upon seeing the skull in the bag, believed the deputies’ actions were disrespectful to the decedent and outrageous to normal family sensibilities, the indictment shows.

Officials discovered the alleged mishandling after the same person who reported the remains in October 2024 found additional human remains in August 2025 and called the district attorney’s office.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation searched the area after the report and also reviewed the human remains collected by the Sheriff’s Office the previous fall.

The Costilla County Sheriff and Schultz are each facing one count of abuse of a corpse and four counts of second-degree official misconduct.

Schultz’s pretrial conference for a separate official misconduct case related to cybercrime begins on April 14.

Unlawful use of force

On Feb. 3, deputies had cleared a person suffering from suicidal ideation, but they were chased by other deputies when leaving, despite being unarmed and free to go. The person then had several tasers deployed on them and was taken to the ground by four deputies.

The District Attorney’s Office states in its indictment that the deputies should have let the person run away because they posed no threat.

Deputies allegedly said numerous times on body camera footage that the individual was free to go to the hospital on their own accord, and they were not under arrest or charged with a crime.

An individual whose name was redacted determined that the person suffered a broken rib because of taser deployments by Riley and Caleb Sanchez while Cruz watched over them, according to the indictment. Neither deputy gave verbal warnings about their eventual use of force.

Sanchez allegedly claimed he was “too new to understand what happened,” and none of the officers documented the events that unfolded, the indictment shows. The Sheriff’s Office did not conduct a use-of-force investigation into the incident.

The indictment alleges the ranking officers, Cruz and Caleb Sanchez, failed to inform Sheriff Danny Sanchez of the incident and failed to complete reports several weeks after it occurred.

Furthermore, a redacted witness told the grand jury the use of three taser probes was “certainly excessive,” and they should not have been deployed.

On Thursday, all three were indicted on numerous charges stemming from the incident.

Soto was indicted on two counts of failing to intervene, third-degree assault, two counts of failure to report use of force and four counts of second-degree official misconduct.

Caleb Sanchez and Riley will face charges of second- and third-degree assault.