Nunez sentenced to 21 years for his role in beating death of Jeremiah Valencia
Oct. 15—State District Judge Matthew Wilson sentenced Jordan Nuñez to 21 years in prison Friday for failing to intervene while his father beat and tortured 13-year-old Jeremiah Valencia to death in the family's Nambé home in the fall of 2017.
Wilson rejected arguments made by Nuñez's defense attorneys that his sentence should be significantly mitigated due to his own traumatic childhood and fear of his father.
Nuñez's father, Thomas Ferguson, was accused of beating and torturing the boy, the son of Ferguson's girlfriend, to death in 2017. Ferguson took his own life in the Santa Fe County jail in 2018 before standing trial.
Prosecutors subsequently moved their focus to Nuñez, contending he was a willing accomplice in his father's brutal torment of the boy and the burial of Jeremiah's body in a plastic tub near the family's home.
Nuñez, 23, pleaded guilty in 2020 to child abuse and tampering with evidence for his role in the crime and faced up to 24 years in prison on those charges.
Wilson found Nuñez crime was a serious violence offense, meaning he'll be required to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence and won't have the ability to earn day-for-day time for good behavior while he is incarcerated.
