Federal prosecutors believe Pojoaque Pueblo's lieutenant governor might have stopped her car after she struck and killed a pedestrian last spring and moved the body, according to court documents.

A motion filed Tuesday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Burkhead in federal District Court in Albuquerque says this is the "only reasonable inference" from the facts of the case, including blood evidence found at the scene of the crash on Pojoaque Pueblo along U.S. 84/285.

The motion says that after killing Phillip Espinosa, Linda Diaz, 52, "got out of the car, rolled him over, and discovered him to be dead. ... She then fled the scene."

Lt. Dennis O'Brien of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office determined that the body must have been moved because he saw blood on the ground past the point where Espinosa's body came to rest, according to the motion.

"From this, he was able to conclude that the victim's body must have been moved after it came to rest, a circumstance that would explain why blood was found in a spot where it should not have otherwise been," the motion says.

Diaz is expected to claim at trial that she believed she hit an animal, or that someone threw a rock at her car and, therefore, she did not stop. "Evidence that somebody moved the victim's body, therefore, tends to cast doubt on that version of events," the prosecution's motion says.

In addition, it appears that Espinosa — whose name is spelled "Espinoza" in previous court documents — initially came to rest face-down because blood dripped down from his ears to his face, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said Wednesday. However, when deputies found Espinosa's body, he was lying on his back, Solano said.

Diaz's attorney, Sam Winder, wants prosecutors to disclose what expertise O'Brien used to form his opinion that Espinosa's body had been moved, according to a defense motion filed in August.

However, Burkhead's motion filed Tuesday said the government has no intention of asking O'Brien his opinion as to whether the body was moved. Instead, he plans to introduce blood and other evidence that suggests the trajectory of the body, then let the jury "do what juries have been doing for over 200 years: draw reasonable inference from the facts before it," the motion states.

"None of this is to suggest that the jury has to accept the government's theory," Burkhead writes. "Perhaps a passing motorist stopped to assist and moved the body. Or, perhaps an animal moved the body, and, in the process, caused the blood to appear where Lt. O'Brien observed it. Whatever the case, it is beyond reasonable dispute that it is one of the core functions of the jury to resolve those inferences that are reasonable from those that are not."

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Nov. 3, according to online court records.

A man walking his dog discovered Espinosa's body about noon April 4 in or near a clump of bushes along the side the highway. An autopsy determined Espinosa had been lying there five or six hours before he was discovered. Espinosa was last seen about 10 p.m. April 3 at Big Rock Casino in Española, where he worked.

Diaz called Pojoaque tribal police crying in the late morning hours of April 5 — nearly 30 hours after the crash — and told them she had "done something very bad" and was "very worried," according to Burkhead's motion. Police recovered human hairs from Diaz's gray Mercury Marquis that "to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty" indicated that they were from Espinosa, the motion says.

Diaz has pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident and failing to render aid.

A search warrant for Diaz's phone records filed in August said Diaz drank between one and three beers the night Espinosa was killed, and "partied" with a group of people until the early morning hours of April 4. Diaz drove a group of friends from a club in Española to a man's house in the Pojoaque area, then drove home, the warrant states. A man who was with them told investigators Diaz didn't seem intoxicated, the search warrant said.

In his motion, Burkhead wrote that Diaz's motive to flee the scene was that she had been drinking alcohol.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.