Wheeler Cowperthwaite
For the Roswell Tribune
A Roswell man is wanted on a warrant charging him with 10 counts of larceny after he allegedly stole and sold his friend’s guns.
David Melendrez, 34, has been wanted on the state-wide warrant since July 23. The warrant charges Melendrez with nine counts of larceny of a gun under $2,500 and one count of larceny between $500 and $2,500. All of the charges are fourth-degree felonies.
The statewide warrant means Melendrez can be arrested in any county or jurisdiction in New Mexico to face the charges.
Roswell Police Detective Matthew Shappard filed for the arrest warrant. He wrote in court documents that John Bolte of Roswell told officers that he let Melendrez, whom he had known for five years, stay with him for a month.
Bolte said both his guns as well as guns belonging to his son were stolen during that time, according to the complaint. He kept all his guns in a locked room, police said, and the key was kept in his front door area.
Bolte discovered guns were missing on June 21, when he went to look for his keys and noticed they were hanging in the hallway, Shappard wrote.
“He knew something was weird,” Shappard wrote.
When he went into his gun room, Bolte found several firearms missing and said the only person who could have stolen them was Melendrez, read the complaint.
Bolte reached out to Melendrez’s family and “was given the run around” so he started contacting other people who knew him, the complaint read. One man, David Garcia, said he had connected Melendrez with a friend who works in the oilfield and this friend bought three guns from Melendrez, police said.
Garcia and Bolte both paid the man $500 to get three guns back, a Winchester action pump, a Henry Goldenboy and a 2016 Remington .22 caliber.
“John stated the reason he paid for his own guns back is because they were his father’s and have a lot of sentimental value to him,” Shappard wrote.
Bolte then went back through his surveillance camera footage and found one clip of Melendrez allegedly loading a gun case into his truck, the complaint read.
“John stated he believed David was stealing guns slowly over the period of time that he was staying there,” Shappard wrote.
Garcia told Shappard that he had known Melendrez for five years and Melendrez told him he inherited the guns from a family member in the military.
Shappard got a search warrant for Snapchat messages and found one conversation where Melendrez allegedly wrote that he was sold the guns because one of Bolte’s relatives “owed a dealer for getting fronted a bunch of coke.”
In all, $3,390 worth of tools and $5,650 worth of guns were taken, six from Bolte, two from his son and one from another relative who had been staying with Bolte, Shappard wrote.
The warrant was issued the same day Shappard submitted it to the judge, July 23.
Past conviction
Melendrez was held without bail as a danger to the community in 2019, after he was accused of hitting a woman with a hatchet, and a pistol. She was beaten so badly, both her eyes were nearly swollen shut by the time police arrived, according to court documents.
He pleaded guilty to eight charges on May 5, 2020 in that case, and was sentenced to two and a half years, given credit for over a year spent in jail, and sent to prison for a year and two months.
