The old jury-deliberation headline is years out of date: three men were convicted and sentenced, and the New Mexico Supreme Court later affirmed all three direct appeals.
| Victims | Ahmed Lateef, 14, and Collin Romero, 15 |
|---|---|
| Defendants | Stephen Goldman Jr., Jimmie Atkins and Julio Almentero |
| Verdicts | Guilty verdicts returned February 27, 2023 |
| Sentences | Two consecutive life sentences for each defendant, imposed May 1, 2023 |
| Latest Verified Update | Julio Almentero appeal affirmed September 8, 2025 |
| Case Status | Convictions affirmed on direct appeal |
Why This Article Required a Full Correction
The earlier headline said a jury was deliberating in what it described as a nine-year-old Albuquerque murder case. That is no longer a useful description of the record. The jury returned verdicts in February 2023, the three defendants were sentenced in May 2023, and all three pursued direct appeals to the New Mexico Supreme Court. The latest of those appellate decisions was filed September 8, 2025. Because the old headline stopped before verdict, sentence and appeal, a metadata-only edit would leave the body anchored to a procedural stage that ended years ago.
The Victims
Ahmed Lateef, 14, and Collin Romero, 15, disappeared in December 2018. Authorities later found their bodies buried in a shallow grave on the mesa west of Rio Rancho. Trial evidence and appellate decisions describe a sequence in which the teenagers were beaten and then killed after events connected to a proposed firearm transaction and marijuana. The gruesome nature of the evidence drew significant attention, but the legal record matters most here because the case eventually produced jury verdicts, life sentences and direct appellate review.
Trial and Guilty Verdicts
Stephen Goldman Jr., Jimmie Atkins and Julio Almentero were tried together in Bernalillo County. On February 27, 2023, the jury found all three guilty on the principal charges. Contemporary reporting described convictions including two counts of first-degree felony murder, kidnapping and armed robbery. The jury did not merely continue deliberating; it resolved the case against the three trial defendants. That completed verdict stage should have replaced the earlier deliberation headline immediately.
Sentencing
On May 1, 2023, the court sentenced the three men to two consecutive life sentences. KOB reported that the sentencing brought the trial phase to a close after relatives of both the victims and defendants addressed the court. Other reporting described additional prison time associated with the non-murder counts. The central sentencing fact for this update is that each defendant received consecutive life terms after the double-murder convictions. Those sentences became the judgments from which the defendants pursued direct appeals.
Jimmie Atkins Appeal
Jimmie Atkins challenged his convictions in the New Mexico Supreme Court. In a nonprecedential decision filed June 2, 2025, the court rejected his argument that the trial judge had inadequately responded to a jury question and affirmed his convictions. The court’s decision expressly identifies the two felony-murder convictions arising from the kidnapping and killings of Romero and Lateef and the armed robbery of Lateef. That ruling left Atkins’ convictions intact.
Stephen Goldman Jr. Appeal
Stephen Goldman Jr. also took a direct appeal. On June 30, 2025, the New Mexico Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. The decision addressed challenges connected to the jury’s question and an ineffective-assistance argument. The court again treated the convictions as two first-degree felony-murder counts arising from the killings, along with the underlying circumstances tried to the jury. Goldman’s direct appeal therefore did not disturb the judgment.
Julio Almentero Appeal
Julio Almentero’s appeal was the last of the three direct appeals to be resolved in the reviewed record. On September 8, 2025, the New Mexico Supreme Court rejected several challenges to the jury instructions and affirmed. The court noted that Almentero had been convicted of two counts of first-degree felony murder and appealed a life sentence. Because this is the most recent completed substantive event among the three co-defendants located in the reviewed sources, September 8, 2025 controls the article date.
Role of Other Participants
The trial record also involved people who were accused of assisting after the killings. KOB reported that Anthony Aragon helped bury the bodies and that Stephen Goldman Sr. admitted destroying the vehicle used in the crime; both had plea agreements and testified. Their proceedings are separate from the convictions of Goldman Jr., Atkins and Almentero. This article does not collapse every participant into the same legal posture, because pleas for evidence-tampering conduct are not the same as the murder judgments imposed on the three trial defendants.
What the Appeals Do and Do Not Mean
An affirmance means the reviewing court did not find reversible error on the claims presented in that direct appeal. It does not erase the defendants’ ability to pursue every form of later collateral relief that may be available under law, and it does not convert a nonprecedential decision into a broad rule for unrelated cases. For this article, the practical point is narrower: the convictions and life sentences remained in force after the direct appeals reviewed here.
Current Outcome
The case is therefore far beyond the jury-deliberation stage. Goldman Jr., Atkins and Almentero were convicted, sentenced to consecutive life terms, and unsuccessful in the direct appeals located for this review. The latest verified completed event is the September 8, 2025 Almentero decision. Any later post-conviction ruling should be added only after it is verified from a court record or reliable case-specific reporting.
Why September 2025 Controls the Update Date
The three defendants did not receive their appellate decisions on the same day. Atkins was affirmed first on June 2, 2025, Goldman followed on June 30, and Almentero’s appeal was decided on September 8. Because this article covers the joint prosecution and all three direct appeals, the September decision is the latest completed substantive event in the reviewed record. That date is more accurate for the cleaned post than the 2023 verdict or sentencing dates, even though those events remain central to the story. The date standard is not meant to make an old crime appear newly committed; it signals the most recent verified procedural stage of the case. The article therefore states the 2018 crime date, the 2023 verdict and sentence dates, and the 2025 appellate dates separately so readers can see the sequence rather than collapsing them into one timestamp.
Sources
- KOB, sentencing coverage, May 1, 2023
- KOAT, sentencing coverage, May 1, 2023
- KOB, verdict coverage, Feb. 27, 2023
- Associated Press, Feb. 27, 2023
- New Mexico Supreme Court, State v. Atkins, June 2, 2025
- New Mexico Supreme Court, State v. Goldman, June 30, 2025
- New Mexico Supreme Court, State v. Almentero, Sept. 8, 2025
This article summarizes completed convictions, sentences and direct appellate rulings. Any later collateral proceeding should be evaluated separately.
