By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Special to the SUN

A 24-year-old Española man pleaded guilty to a single count of drunk driving, following a June 12 crash in which deputies allegedly found the passenger in his car died from what appeared to be an overdose before the crash.

Joseph Ferran, also referred to as Joseph Ferran-Bailon in court documents, pleaded guilty to the drunk driving charge on March 3. District Judge Anastasia Martin sentenced him to a year of probation and suspended his 90 day sentence.

Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Martinez initially arrested Ferran on a charge of fourth degree child abuse because a child was in the car when he crashed. Prosecutors dropped that charge.

In incident and crash reports, deputies describe how they found Angelica Martinez, of Santa Clara, in the car after the crash and how she was unconscious. While they administered the opiate overdose-reversing drug Narcan, generically known as naloxone, and performed CPR, medics declared Martinez dead at the scene. Ferran, unconscious when he was pulled from the car, was also given Narcan. When it was administered, he began to snore and move his head.

Angelica Martinez was either 23 or 24, as incident reports redacted her date of birth, no obituary appears to have been posted for her and she had no criminal record.

Dennis Martinez wrote in a criminal complaint for Ferran’s arrest that Ferran’s car was heading east on Camino Habitat, it swayed to the left of the road, hit a curve in the driveway and went straight, hitting a metal fence post.

Dennis Martinez’s criminal complaint only refers to Angelica Martinez as a passenger and makes no mention of her death.