A hearing to reassess the sentencing of a Las Cruces teacher convicted of sexually abusing a student was rescheduled after the District Attorney’s office failed to notify the women who experienced the abuse.
Court records show the hearing to reconsider Patrick Howard’s shortened probation was rescheduled from Aug. 1 to Sept. 5 because “the State did not contact the victims in this case to provide them notice of the Aug. 1, 2024, hearing until Jul. 31, 2024,” a motion requesting the new hearing date stated.
“Not all victims are able to attend the hearing, but all have expressed that they wish to appear after proper notice,” the motion, written by Assistant District Attorney Richard Wellborn, said.
Howard, a 61-year-old former agricultural sciences teacher and Future Farmers of America advisor at Las Cruces High School, will return to court on Sept. 5 after the New Mexico Supreme Court said the judge should reconsider Howard’s suspended probation.
Justices took up the case after the New Mexico Attorney General filed a petition requesting the court to reconsider the suspended probation and remove the case from the 3rd Judicial District Court. The Supreme Court did force the judge, Douglas Driggers, to reconsider his previous probation suspension but did not take the case from him as the AG requested.
Howard was charged with three counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and one count of battery. He pleaded guilty in 2021 to one count of criminal sexual contact with a minor and a count of battery. The charges stemmed from incidents between Howard and his students during his tenure at LCHS.
Driggers sentenced him to five years of probation but did not require him to formally register as a sex offender – a deal that the 3rd Judicial District Attorney’s Office approved at the time but has since backtracked on.
In March 2024, Driggers suspended the sentence early. Court records do not indicate what prompted the suspension other than Driggers' belief that Howard had "satisfactorily fulfilled the conditions of his probation."
The Las Cruces Bulletin contacted the District Attorney for comment but received no response.
