Charges dismissed against woman accused of receiving stolen sculpture

Prosecutors have dismissed a felony charge against a Santa Fe woman who was accused earlier this year of having a large ceramic sculpture at her home that a gallery owner alleged was stolen years beforehand.

A charge of receiving stolen property against Yvonne Montoya, 56, was dropped April 23, according to a notice of dismissal filed by prosecutors. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled or sent to a grand jury.

Montoya said in an interview the case boiled down to “bad luck for me.”

She had picked up the sculpture from someone on the south side of Santa Fe while picking up cabinets with a friend, she said, and she didn’t know anything about the history of the piece.

Montoya provided an affidavit she submitted in which she wrote she had acquired the sculpture in the spring of 2022 for free when her friend took her to pick up some cabinets from a woman in a neighborhood near Jaguar Drive.

“There was no reason to believe that the statue was stolen,” she wrote. “I started calling galleries and emailing some of them, as well as landscaping [companies] and cold-calling people and businesses months before I listed it on [Facebook] Marketplace.”

The owner of Hat Ranch Gallery told Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies the two-piece sculpture had been taken from the property in early 2022, and she inquired about the sculpture with Montoya upon seeing it listed on a Facebook page called “Santa Fe Pickers.”

Sheriff’s deputies went to Montoya’s house in Santa Fe in September and found the sculpture sitting in the front yard, an investigator wrote in an affidavit. The deputy alleged Montoya was “irate and uncooperative” with officers, and deputies removed the sculpture and returned it to the gallery owner.

“They went over and grabbed it for her,” Montoya said. “If I stole something, I’m not going to put it in my front yard.”

Deputies noted in their affidavit Montoya told officers she didn’t know it was stolen and had received the sculpture from an unknown source on the south side, adding she “stated she wanted to return the sculpture.”

Investigators alleged in the affidavit that after chatting with the gallery owner, Montoya deleted the Facebook post as well as her profile “in appearance to conceal,” and deputies filed a felony charge of receiving stolen property.

Montoya maintained she had no knowledge of the sculpture being stolen throughout the interaction, and deputies acknowledged the gallery owner made a “delayed report” of the stolen artwork.

She said she was glad to see the case dismissed.

“But that doesn’t fix my reputation,” she said. “My family types my name in and sees that I’m a thief — that’s embarrassing.”