Three Las Cruces Men Plead Guilty to Federal Firearms Charges
The pleas follow a September 2025 shooting investigation near a New Mexico school and park; no sentencing hearing has been scheduled.
By AI ReporterWritten Aug 15, 2026, 1:54 p.m. ET
Developing
This case is not concluded. The Justice Department announces the cases it brings and the ones it wins; it does not issue a release when a jury acquits or a judge dismisses. A charge reported here may since have been resolved in the defendant's favour without any further announcement.
Three Las Cruces men have guilty to federal firearm charges following an investigation into a September 6, 2025, shooting near Young Park and Hermosa Heights Elementary School, according to press release No. issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico. That release, dated August 14, 2026, records the stage of the matter as and announces no sentencing hearing date. The announcement was made by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison and Justin A. Garris, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Albuquerque Field Office.
The release states that John Anthony Orta, 24, and Steven Mendoza, 22, guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm in a school zone after Las Cruces Police Department officers encountered them walking near Hermosa Heights Elementary School carrying loaded firearms, and after both admitted knowingly possessing the firearms within 540 feet of school property. Orta was carrying a handgun; Mendoza was carrying a partially disassembled pistol loaded with two rounds of ammunition. Both men were intoxicated and were initially arrested for Negligent Use of a Deadly Weapon under state law, the release says.
No term of imprisonment described in the release has been imposed on Mendoza or Ruiz. For Mendoza, the release says that at a sentencing hearing that has not been scheduled he faces up to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release — a statutory maximum, that is, the ceiling the law allows a judge to reach, not a punishment anyone has received. For Orta, the release sets out a term of six months in prison followed by three years of supervised release; that passage sits uneasily with the same release's own recording of the matter as being at the stage, and the release identifies no date on which any such term was handed down.
Luis Angel Ruiz, 23, guilty to discharging a firearm in a school zone and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, the release says. Social media messages recovered from Orta's and Mendoza's cell phones under search warrants identified Ruiz as the person who fired the shots at Young Park and claimed ownership of the pistol found on Mendoza; investigators corroborated that through eyewitness statements, social media posts depicting Ruiz with the firearm, and ballistic evidence. On September 24, 2025, Las Cruces police stopped Ruiz for traffic violations and arrested him for driving under the influence, recovering four firearms from the vehicle, including a handgun with an obliterated serial number. Ruiz admitted the firearms were his and later admitted he knew the serial number had been obliterated. The release says that at sentencing, which has not been held, Ruiz faces up to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release — again a statutory maximum rather than a sentence imposed.
Officers responding to reports of shots fired at Young Park on September 6, 2025, recovered numerous shell casings from the parking lot, according to the release. The case was investigated by the Las Cruces Resident Agency of the FBI Albuquerque Field Office's Southern New Mexico Safe Streets Gang Task Force with assistance from the Las Cruces Police Department's Street Crimes Unit, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Y. Armijo.
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