A federal grand jury indicted a Dulce man on Jan. 21 on charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury for an alleged attack involving a knife and a table.

The grand jury indicted Russell Veneno, also known as Russell Alan Veneno, 50, on Jan. 21, three months after the alleged attack on Oct. 27.

Because Veneno was indicted, court documents contain no details of the alleged incident, aside from a table and knife being used as deadly weapons and that the attack resulted in “serious bodily injury.”

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Farmington branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigations investigated the case along with the Jicarilla Apache Police Department.

Federal Magistrate Judge Karen Molzen ordered Veneno to be held without bail at his initial appearance on Feb. 18. He was arrested a day earlier but no warrant return appears in the court record to indicate where he was arrested. His arrest was nearly a month after the indictment.

At the arraignment and detention hearing on Feb. 20, Veneno waived his right to contest being held indefinitely without bail. While New Mexico’s state court system requires a presumption of release pending trial, there is no such guarantee in the federal system.

Magistrate Judge Laura Fashing entered the order of detention pending trial, checking the boxes that “by a preponderance of the evidence,” no conditions of release would assure that Veneno would appear in court, that he lacks a stable residence, stable employment, has a history of alcohol or substance abuse and has in the past failed to appear in court as ordered.

The court record contains no evidence of any of the reasons Fashing checked, and it is unclear what court appearances he failed to make in the past. Veneno has no prior criminal history in the federal courts.

His criminal history in the state court system consists of three misdemeanor cases of driving on a suspended license in 2005, drunk driving second offense in 2011 and driving on a license revoked for drunk driving in 2020.

The docket in the 2011 drunk driving case has no records of any times that Veneno failed to appear. He pleaded guilty to one count of drunk driving second offense.

His next court appearance is set for April 2.