Juan Jose Ruiz Rojas, 37, faces five criminal charges out of Rio Grande City and Starr County. Police complaints obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request show a string of thefts, a domestic violence attack with a machete, and a foot chase with police.
Ruiz Rojas is accused. He has not been convicted. Each charge comes from its own criminal complaint, filed by different officers between March and June of 2026. El Tejano got the records straight from the agencies that wrote them.
The complaints show a pattern. Different victims. Different crimes. The same man's name keeps coming up, sometimes under his own name and sometimes under a street name police say is his: "El Piojo" or "Moreno." For a small community like Rio Grande City, that kind of repeat pattern raises real safety questions for neighbors and exes alike.
The oldest case in the file starts on March 30, 2026. Shenandoah Solis told Deputy Chris Garza that someone stole her black electric bike with a brown seat from Barcelona Street, according to the complaint.
About a month later, on April 28, 2026, Deputy Omar Martinez found a bike matching that description at a home on Wale Street in Las Lomas. The homeowner said her stepfather had left it there, the complaint states.
Investigator Rafael Aguirre followed up on the case. A witness named Ana Enriquez told him her mother's boyfriend rode up to her house on the e-bike. When he spotted law enforcement nearby, he took off running and left the bike behind, according to the complaint. Enriquez rode it back home. Records identify that boyfriend as Ruiz Rojas.
On May 10, 2026, at about 4:34 p.m., Deputy David Garza responded to a fight inside a trailer home in Rio Grande City. The alleged victim, Ana Laura Gonzalez, is an ex-girlfriend of Ruiz Rojas. She told the deputy that Ruiz Rojas walked into her home without her okay while she was cooking, according to the complaint. He punched her face several times, the complaint says. Then he grabbed a machete and said he would kill her while he held it, Gonzalez told the deputy. She had swelling on the right side of her face and bruises from the punches, according to the complaint.
That case brought two charges. Burglary of habitation is a felony that can mean 2 to 20 years in prison. Terroristic threat against family is a misdemeanor that can mean up to a year in county jail.
On June 16, 2026, at 7:10 a.m., Lt. Juan Saldana of the Rio Grande City Police Department went to a home looking for Ruiz Rojas. He had several open warrants at the time, according to the complaint. When Saldana arrived, Ruiz Rojas jumped out of a trailer home window and ran. Officers chased him down and caught him without a fight, the complaint states. That led to a charge of evading arrest on foot, a misdemeanor that can mean up to a year in jail.
Three days later, on June 19, 2026, Investigator Aguirre sat down with Ruiz Rojas about the stolen e-bike. Ruiz Rojas gave no statement, according to the complaint. Investigators said multiple people had seen him riding the bike, and they charged him with theft.
A separate theft complaint names Marisela Mares as the victim. She told Deputy Christopher Garza that her wife, Rocio Munoz, lent Ruiz Rojas a red Craftsman chainsaw about four days earlier so he could cut a tree branch, according to the complaint. He promised to bring it back. When Mares asked for the chainsaw, Ruiz Rojas showed up with a different one and claimed he had more chainsaws at her house, the complaint states. When she told him she would call police, he ran off. Mares valued the missing chainsaw at about $548.
Court records also list a burglary of vehicle charge against Ruiz Rojas tied to a municipal warrant. That filing does not include a detailed narrative of what happened.
Investigators with the Starr County Sheriff's Office say they got a tip from Rio Grande City police linking a string of thefts in the Las Lomas area to a man known as "El Piojo" or "Moreno," who shares the same birth year as Ruiz Rojas.
Ruiz Rojas is now facing all five charges at once: evading arrest, burglary of a vehicle, two counts of theft, burglary of habitation, and a terroristic threat charge. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. Court dates and any plea have not been made public. El Tejano will follow the case as it moves through Starr County courts.
