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“Sometimes it seems like we’re in a red-light district,” a manager said. The women “may be mentally ill, but they are still human. They treat them inhumanely. They treat them like a piece of meat for their own enjoyment.”

Carbon monoxide deaths in 2013

The rape case against Benjamin Baca is the second major criminal case in two years involving the treatment of the mentally ill after their release into the community from the state psychiatric hospital,

In 2015, Jose Encinias and his wife, Denise, of Las Vegas, pleaded no contest to charges of negligence resulting in death.

The couple had installed a garden shed in their backyard and rented it to Cochise Bayhan, 56, and Alex Montoya, 61, as living quarters after the men were released from the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute.

Bayhan and Montoya were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in the shed in October 2013. Building inspectors found 27 construction code violations with the shed, 11 of them gas code violations. Jose Encinias had installed a propane-fueled heater and draped the inside of the shed with plastic as insulation.

The home managers said many of their boarders are childlike.

“They don’t know what they are consenting to,” a manager said. “They are too trustworthy of the ones they shouldn’t trust.”

The manager said a woman once asked if it was rape if a man had sex with her after she said “no.” She added that several of her boarders over the years have tested positive for sexually transmitted diseases and that she learned one woman was called the “quarter lady” because she allegedly would do anything for a quarter.

Criminal charges

Last week, Baca, 75, was charged with rape, criminal sexual contact and kidnapping based on allegations of two women who moved into Las Vegas boarding homes after their discharge from the Behavioral Health Institute.

Baca allegedly forced one woman to provide oral sex, then drove her for cigarettes, Pepsi and cheese. The second woman said Baca drove her to a cemetery and “did anything he could try,” according to an arrest warrant. The main thing, she said, was oral sex for Baca and cigarettes for her.

Baca hasn’t yet entered a plea to the charges and is jailed in lieu of $100,000 cash-only bail. He pleaded guilty to a drug possession charge in 2013, according to state records. Charges against him for aggravated assault against a household member in 2000 and battery against a household member in 2001 were dismissed.

More charges against Baca are possible. DNA samples from additional women have been taken to see whether they match evidence from his pickup. Police also have been investigating allegations that Baca was involved in prostitution.

The charges against Baca are the result of what Las Vegas Police Chief Juan Montaño said has been a monthslong investigation by his office and the offices of the state attorney general and local district attorney.

Montaño said the investigation began after he saw a former mental hospital patient on a downtown street on a cold evening and offered to buy her a meal. The woman said over dinner that she had been raped, the chief said.

A Las Vegas counselor who previously worked with mentally ill women also began pressing last year for state and federal authorities to investigate Baca.

Street prey

A boarding home manager and Shela Silverman, director of the nonprofit Mental Health Association of New Mexico, which is located in Las Vegas, said they have contacted police over the years about men preying on mentally ill women.

“Finally, someone has heard us,” the home manager said.

The managers, who aren’t being identified by name for the protection of them and their residents, said they told Baca to stay away from the homes, and Silverman said she also had prohibited him from visiting an association center for the mentally ill.

“We put that man out I don’t know how many times,” Silverman said.

Still, Baca managed to hook up with former hospital patients. Some women would go to his home, and he picked up others off the street, the home managers said.

One manager said that when a resident missed a meal or didn’t come home in the evening, she would phone Baca. Sometimes, she said, Baca would say that a woman was with another man and provide the man’s name.

“He always seemed to know where they were,” the home manager said. The manager said she asked Baca if he was prostituting the women, but he denied it.

The second home manager said she became concerned about Baca four or five years ago when she saw him dropping off two women and picking up two more. The manager said she grabbed Baca by his shirt collar as he sat in his truck and told him, “Leave my ladies alone. Don’t prey on my ladies. They are not here for your enjoyment.”

Many times, the men are older community members with families, she said. “There’s been plenty of men out in my yard that I’ve told to get the hell out of here,” the manager said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on.”

Silverman said mentally ill women wander the streets and, “These guys go out looking for them. … We’ve been complaining about this for 15 years.”

Giving consent

Dozens of women and men are discharged each year into the community from the Behavioral Health Institute. State regulations require discharge plans for any needed continuing care. The institute has an outpatient facility in Las Vegas that provides daily psychosocial rehabilitation, which emphasizes daily living skills.

Attorney Jim Jackson, director of Disability Rights New Mexico, said that just because a person has a mental illness doesn’t mean that person can’t consent to sex and make other major life decisions.

However, Jackson said, a woman who has been found incapacitated by a judge because of mental illness is incapable of giving consent. Many of the women who are discharged from the psychiatric hospital have been adjudicated mentally incapacitated and have guardians appointed for them.

A woman who hasn’t been found by a judge to be incapacitated can still be unable to give consent. Under New Mexico law, a person can be convicted of a sexual offense if the person knew or had reason to know that the victim suffered from a mental condition and was incapable of understanding the nature or consequences of the sexual contact.

“Do we have a responsibility to protect (the women)? Absolutely,” Silverman said.

One of the boarding home managers said she counsels her residents about men but can’t lock the door to keep them inside. “You try to do what you can,” she said.