The two women, besides Addelina Lucero, who were instrumental in helping Devon Peña and The Acequia Institute land a $1.5 million grant from the Colorado Health Foundation to pursue a local foods initiative in San Luis took the witness stand Wednesday in Lucero’s wrongful termination lawsuit against the nonprofit and Peña.

Beth Ann Sanchez, Peña’s former partner, and community organizer Shirley Romero-Otero both testified to Peña’s penchant for lashing out at people – namely women – and testified that Lucero’s firing by Peña was unjust.

Sanchez spent five hours on the witness stand recounting how she and Peña worked on the Colorado Health Foundation grant and the growing pains that ensued for the small nonprofit once the major grant was awarded in December 2021.

Sanchez credited Peña for creating a “beautiful vision” for what the San Luis Peoples Market could become and the effort to bring young farmers into the mix to grow and sell fresh foods through the store.

Key to the project was Lucero and her knowledge around the indigenous food movement, along with Romero-Otero and her ability to organize. Sanchez testified the goal was to create a worker-owned cooperative model that valued mutual respect and accountability to one another.

But Peña’s “incredibly abusive burst of anger” and his “chaotic” “dictatorial” “knee-jerk” “humiliating” style undermined the working relationships, she said.

“I think we all tried,” said Sanchez in recounting the intentions of The Acequia Institute once it landed the Colorado Health Foundation grant. “The one person in this room who cared about healing as a way of being was Addelina Lucero.”

As she spoke, Peña and Lucero, sitting at separate tables on different ends of the courtroom, wiped away tears.

Shirley Romero-Otero carried the same presence on the witness stand as she does wherever she speaks and appears – firm in her words and convictions. She said she was invited by Peña to join the project because of her background as a seasoned community organizer and joined The Acequia Institute board in 2019.

Like Sanchez, Romero-Otero recounted the time spent preparing the grant and the enthusiasm she had for the work, and then the months after the grant was awarded and the chaos that followed.

“I believed in the project. I still believe in the project,” she said.

Of Peña, she said, “I knew he needed my connections, my skills, my expertise to make this project happen. In hindsight, I realized he used me for my skills and connections. He abused me because I knew more than him.”

A series of emails between The Acequia Institute board members and staff, which included Lucero, shed light on the events that led up to a July 5, 2022, staff meeting, where Peña blew up at Lucero and fired her 10 days later through a termination letter issued on July 15.

Sanchez testified that she and other board members agreed to support Peña’s decision to fire Lucero because she felt obligated to Peña to do so. “I was also his romantic partner and I wanted to be supportive of the decision he made,” she said.

She testified that she put together a list of items that could support the firing and signed the termination letter sent to Lucero.

“I felt compelled and felt convinced of Devon’s sense of being offended by an insubordinate,” Sanchez said. “I wish I would have said, ‘Can we have power with each other rather than power over each other?’”

One of the six jurors deciding the case submitted a question during Sanchez’s testimony asking if Lucero was provided with an employment contract and an outline of her job prior to her employment with The Acequia Institute. 

Sanchez testified Lucero was not given an employment contract ahead of time, and in fact Lucero outlined her own contract and job description after she was hired, indicating the fluid nature of the operations once the Colorado Health Foundation grant was awarded.

The civil trial resumes Thursday at the Costilla County Courthouse.