UPDATE:
Costilla County Sheriff Danny Sanchez, his undersheriff Cruz Soto as well as the three deputies who were indicted on Thursday, all turned themselves in on Friday and have been bonded out.
Former Deputy Keith Schultz was charged with abuse of a corpse alongside sheriff Sanchez from a case from 2024, while deputies Roland Riley and Caleb Sanchez were charged alongside undersheriff Soto from an excessive use incident from February.
12th Judicial District Anne Kelly confirmed that Caleb Sanchez is Danny Sanchez’s son.
They will appear in court on April 1 for a return date on bond hearing. As well as being charged, they will all be served with mandatory protection orders.
During Friday night’s press conference, Kelly said that the indictments and charges against the officers provide “no mechanism” to remove them from duty. Whether to resign is their decision, she said.
Sanchez is an elected official and unless he resigns he would have to be recalled. He will not be running for re-election this year. Soto had filed with the Colorado Secretary of State to run for sheriff in Costilla County.
Costilla County Commissioners Steven Romero, Lori Quintana and Robert Espinoza were in attendance at Friday’s press conference. When asked if they were going to call for resignations, Romero said the commission would have to convene and that they “don’t have the authority” to call for a resignation.
“I think we want to know more, we want to understand more and we’ll do the best we can to help out. We’re just here to support everybody going forward and mainly the citizens so we can try to get through a difficult situation,” Romero said.
Quintana said, “And as Anne Kelly said, ‘innocent until proven guilty.’”
Kelly’s office will be holding a community meeting with the residents of Costilla County who have brought forward complaints against the sheriff’s office on April 2 at the Alamosa County Combined Court.
original post | March 27, 2026
Costilla County Sheriff Danny Sanchez and former Deputy Keith Schultz have been indicted on five counts each of official misconduct and one count each of abuse of a corpse as part of a sweeping investigation by the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Undersheriff Cruz Soto and Sergeant Caleb Sanchez and Deputy Roland Riley were also indicted by a 12th Judicial grand jury, according to a district attorney’s announcement released Friday afternoon. The indictments were handed down on Thursday, March 26.
“The District Attorney’s Office is committed to investigating and prosecuting violations of
Colorado law, regardless of who the offender is and what title they hold. Our community
expects our law enforcement officers to perform their duties with integrity and adherence to the law. Restoring and maintaining public trust must always start with accountability,” District Attorney Anne Kelly said in a released statement.
A press conference was held on Friday, March 27.
It was in July of 2025 that Kelly first went public with concerns related to Sanchez and the Costilla County Sheriff’s Department. She later said crime investigators collected more than 1,000 pieces of evidence, some dating back to 1976, as part of a complete cleanup of the evidence storage room at the sheriff’s department when Colorado Bureau of Investigation swept in last September.
The abuse of corpse charge against Sanchez and Schultz involves their handling of the discovery of unidentified human remains in the Wild Horse Mesa area of Costilla County in 2024. In Sanchez’s indictment, it states that Sanchez and Schultz collected a human skull but “they never returned to collect the rest of the remains.”
Soto was indicted on two counts of failing to intervene and one count of third-degree assault for his involvement in a use-of-force incident with a Costilla County citizen suffering from a mental health crisis in February 2026. Sanchez and Riley were indicted on counts of assault in the second and third degree for their use of force in that incident.
These indictments follow an extensive investigation conducted by investigators with the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The investigation is ongoing in response to reports of misconduct by the sheriff’s office from Costilla County residents. Kelly was assisted by Assistant Attorney General Christian Champaign in obtaining the indictments.
An indictment formally charges a person with a crime. All defendants are presumed innocent unless or until proven guilty.
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