Man with ties to Tucumcari accused of trying to smuggle 200 pounds of pot

Federal officers arrested a man with Tucumcari ties accused of trying to smuggle more than 200 pounds of marijuana across the Mexican border.

Trenton Ward, 24, was identified in some news reports as living in Santa Fe. However, the Quay County Clerk’s Office confirmed last week Ward is registered to vote in the county under a rural Tucumcari address.

Ward posted $20,000 bond and was released from jail in El Paso County in Texas.

According to reports, a drug-sniffing dog alerted Customs and Border Protection officers about contraband in a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck Ward was driving May 2 on a bridge between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Officers found 200 bundles of marijuana weighing a total of 232 pounds hidden in the walls of the truck bed.

Ward was released from the El Paso County jail within 24 hours after he posted bond.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Ward was one of eight activists arrested on the Santa Fe Plaza during a September 2017 protest of the annual Fiesta de Santa Fe Entrada — a pageant that re-enacts Don Diego de Vargas’ conquest of the city. Ward’s charges were dismissed.

Ward also was arraigned in Albuquerque Metropolitan Court of assault upon a peace officer in January 2017, but that later was dismissed. He later that year filed a civil suit in Santa Fe District Court against state police in the case.

The newspaper also reported state police arrested Ward and another Tucumcari teen in 2012 in connection with the theft of an assault rifle from a state police patrol car in Tucumcari, but online court documents do not indicate he was prosecuted.