Former Mesa Alta Junior High School Principal Colin Mize was sentenced Thursday to serve 546 days of supervised probation for having battered three women who were his subordinates at the school.
Magistrate Trudy Chase handed down the sentence Oct. 12 in San Juan County Magistrate Court in Aztec. Chase sentenced Mize to 546 days in the San Juan County Detention Center and then suspended that for 546 days of supervised probation beginning Oct. 10 and ending April 10, 2025, according to court documents.
Mize was ordered to undergo a behavioral health analysis and was ordered to pay $323 in fines. He had pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges of battery.
He received 182 days of confinement for each woman he pleaded guilty to battering at the school. Mize originally was charged with nine counts of battery on a school employee, but he entered a plea agreement admitting to three counts of misdemeanor battery, for which he had faced up to six months in jail and a $500 fine on each count, court records show.
Kathi Henderson, a former counselor at Mesa Alta Junior High School, provided a victim-impact statement for the court and attended the sentencing hearing. She said Mize “showed a pattern” in his behavior. During the sentencing, Mize apologized to his wife.
“I think the victims … were very happy with that sentencing,” Henderson said.
“The court did what the victims wanted,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin O’Brien said.
The defense asked Chase to give Mize a deferred sentence, which means the conviction would not have been imposed once he successfully completed probation, O’Brien said.
By “suspending the sentence,” once probation is successfully completed, the conviction will remain on Mize’s criminal record, O’Brien said.
The charges were in connection to Mize having battered three separate women at Mesa Alta Junior High School in Bloomfield, according to court records.
The first three counts were brought to the attention of the Bloomfield Police Department on Jan. 31 by Dannette Lopez, who told police she was pinched three times by Mize, leaving a bruise each time. The first incident was in October 2021, when he pinched her and left a bruise, court records state.
The second was in November 2021, when Mize pinched her again, and Lopez told him, “Don’t pinch me, you bruised me last time,” records state.
“Mize laughed at her,” court records state.
In January 2022, Mize pinched Lopez again, and this time she asked him, “How would you like it if your wife came home with bruises from another man?” court records state.
Three additional counts of battery on a school employee involved school registrar Margaret Lefebre, who went to the Bloomfield Police Department on April 3 to report the batteries.
Lefebre told police that the first time Mize pinched her she was at a coffee bar in the front office. He “came up behind her and pinched her under her right arm above the elbow, leaving a bruise that didn’t heal for two weeks,” according to court documents.
The second time, Lefebre said, she was in the hallway in the front office, when Mize pinched her on “the top of her arm between the elbow and the shoulder,” leaving a bruise. The third time, he pinched her on the “left arm, also leaving a bruise,” according to court records.
The final four counts involved Holly Alderete, an eighth grade math teacher at the school. She reported on May 8, 2023, to Bloomfield Police that on Sept. 10, 2021, Mize walked up to her in the school’s gym and “pinched her under her left arm between the elbow and the shoulder, leaving a bruise,” according to court records.
He told her she needed to “start working out,” the court records state.
Mize pinched her a second time as well, when she was in the office foyer. This time, it was “under the upper left arm,” and both times bruising occurred, according to court documents.
The third time he pinched her was in the school’s office, and it was “under the left arm.” The fourth time, Mize pinched Alderete on “the back of the arm between her elbow and shoulder,” court records state.
All three women – Lopez, Alderete and LeFebre – have filed a claim against Mize, Superintendent Kim Mizell and the Bloomfield School District in the 11th Judicial District Court. They are seeking damages because of the abuse and harassment they reportedly suffered at the hands of Mize.
