LOTSA POLITICAL NEWS

The big news of course is that Former Treasurer Michael Montoya pled guilty to extortion and has agreed to cooperate with the feds' investigation of corruption in the Treasurer's Office.

Here's another couple of stories I did for today's Santa Fe New Mexican:

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Gov. Bill Richardson’s headaches over a magistrate court position in Rio Arriba County aren’t over yet.

On Tuesday, David Gregorio Valdez, Richardson’s latest selection to fill the vacant judgeship, informed the governor’s office that he was withdrawing his name because he had not been truthful during the selection process.

Richardson announced Friday that he was appointing Valdez, a longtime probation officer with the state, to take the place of Judge Tommy Rodella, who resigned in July during a dispute with the governor over a drunken driving case.

But on Tuesday morning, Valdez called the governor’s office and admitted that in 1983 he had been found in contempt of court for failing to pay child support, Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley said. Valdez hadn’t disclosed that information prior to his appointment, Shipley said.

“Valdez misled the Governor’s Office by not disclosing the information on his appointment application and lied about it when questioned by Vince Ward, deputy chief counsel for the governor,” Shipley said in a written news release.

“Furthermore, a background check of electronic law enforcement and court databases revealed no indication that such an incident had been reported to the state,” Shipley said.

Shipley said he doesn’t know what prompted Valdez to come clean on Tuesday.

Shipley said that during the selection process, Valdez had faxed his divorce papers to the governor’s staff. However, the papers didn’t include anything about the contempt of court citation or the delinquent child support, Shipley said.

In announcing the appointment last week, Richardson said, “David Valdez is known throughout the county for his integrity, fairness and his dedication to Rio Arriba and its people. His 12 years of experience as a probation/parole officer make him very familiar with New Mexico's court system. He also shares my goals of getting tougher on (driving while intoxicated), domestic violence and crimes against children.”

Valdez had not yet taken the oath of office or received a letter of appointment from Richardson, Shipley said.

Valdez was one of 24 candidates to apply for the job, which has been open since Rodella — appointed only a few months before — resigned.

A selection committee had gone through the two dozen applications and come up with a short list of Valdez and four other applicants, who were interviewed by Richardson.
Shipley said he doesn’t know whether Richardson will chose a new judge from the other four finalists or start the process over again.

Richardson’s appointment of Rodella — husband of state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-San Juan Pueblo — was controversial from the beginning. The governor said he was caught by surprise when an Española paper obtained an internal affairs report showing Rodella was investigated in the early 1990s for allegedly pressuring other officers to fix traffic tickets to help his wife's legislative campaign.

Richardson stood by the appointment until Rodella made headlines again for driving to the Tierra Amarilla jail on July 4 to obtain the release an acquaintance arrested on a drunken-driving charge.

After Rodella’s resignation, Richardson’s staff came up with an application form that asked more pointed questions. He also created a screening-committee progress to look at the applicants

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The executive director of the state Democratic Party — who recently has come under criticism from some members of her party — is leaving her job to work on a Ph.D.

Vanessa Alarid, who has held the party position since May 2004, will pursue a doctorate in political science at Columbia University in New York, where she earned a master's degree from the university’s School of International and Public Affairs.

“Vanessa’s a great leader with valuable ties across New Mexico,” party spokesman Matt Farrauto said Tuesday. “She has done wonders to bridge the gap between elected officials and party activists. She’ll be remembered for her strength, intelligence and integrity.”

Alarid’s departure, Farrauto said, had nothing to do with the recent controversy over the state party’s contract with Richard Buckman, a Mississippi political operator who happened to be Alarid’s boyfriend.

Under the contract, the party paid Richard Buckman $40,000 between December and September for unspecified services.

Some party activists have questioned the value of Buckman’s services and the propriety of the contract.

State Democratic Chairman John Wertheim said last week that Buckman’s relationship with Alarid had nothing to do with his getting the contract. Wertheim said Buckman was instrumental in getting retired Gen. Wesley Clark to speak at a fundraising dinner in Hobbs.

Buckman’s contract was terminated by mutual consent in September, Wertheim said. Buckman currently is in the entertainment business in Los Angeles.

Farrauto said he wasn’t sure exactly when Alarid will leave, but said she’ll stay on at least until after the Nov. 19 state Central Committee meeting. Her classes begin in January.

Alarid is the granddaughter of former state Sen. Michael Alarid. She has worked in the offices of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Gov. Bill Richardson during his tenure as a Congressman. Alarid also worked in the state Office of Homeland Security in the Richardson administration.

Before taking the job with the state party, Alarid was a majority analyst for the state House of Representatives.

LEO'S CONFESSION

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov. 8, 2005

On the day that Secret Service agents raided the State Treasurer’s Office in 2003 to seize computers used in a counterfeiting operation, Leo Sandoval, then an administrator in the office, scrawled a hand-written confession, admitting not only to making fake money, but acting as the bag man for kickbacks to former Treasurer Michael Montoya.

“I gave $1,000 (in counterfeit) to Mr. Paul Silva, my girlfriend’s brother who told me he was going to Tucson, Ariz.,” Sandoval wrote in the confession dated Dec. 17, 2003. “I strongly advised him against using this money for anything. He told me he was going to use this as a prank against a drug dealer in Tucson.”

Silva had been arrested a few days earlier in Tucson on counterfeiting charges and had told the Secret Service that Sandoval had given him the fake money in repayment of a debt, according to a May 2004 report by the Secret Service to U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

Federal law enforcement officials have said that the counterfeiting case was the spark that resulting in the September indictments of former treasurers Montoya and Robert Vigil on federal charges of extortion. Vigil, who was treasurer at the time of the indictments, resigned last month in the face of possible impeachment in the Legislature.

Iglesias has agreed not to prosecute Sandoval on counterfeiting charges or for his role in the alleged kickback scheme in exchange for Sandoval’s cooperation in the Vigil and Montoya cases.

Sandoval’s confession, the Secret Service report to Iglesias and other previously unreleased documents involving his role in the treasurer scandal emerged last week in a court filing by Vigil’s lawyer Sam Bregman.

Bregman is asking federal District Judge James Parker to throw out evidence seized in an FBI search at Vigil’s home. The lawyer claims that FBI Special Agent Drew McCandless committed perjury in his affidavit to secure the search warrant.

Part of Bregman’s motion deals with McCandless’ description of Sandoval’s counterfeiting case.

The affidavit says that Sandoval — identified only as a “cooperating witness” in the document — was under investigation for counterfeiting, but “the charges were dropped as the Xeroxed money contained sports hero pictures and was intended for Christmas gifts.”

In a Nov. 2 letter to Bregman from Iglesias and prosecutor Jonathan Gerson, argued that McCandless isn’t guilty of perjury because “The FBI determined that (Sandoval’s) purposes in duplicating the currency was to create holiday gifts using pictures of sports figures and others.”

However, as The New Mexican pointed out in a Sept. 20 article, a December 2003 Secret Service affidavit details how Sandoval passed counterfeit bills not only to Silva, but also to Phillip Arellanes, who was arrested in late November 2003 for allegedly passing counterfeited $100 bills.

Neither the Secret Service affidavit nor Sandoval’s confession mention anything about sports heroes or Christmas gifts.

Sandoval in his confession also admitted to counterfeiting government documents.
“I made a driver’s license for Mr. Silva also,” he wrote. He wrote that he made Arellanes a driver’s license, a social security card, a birth certificate and a voter registration card.”

In his written confession, Sandoval gave a brief description of his role as middle man in Montoya’s alleged kickback plan.

“When I started working for the Treasurer’s Office I was asked to pick up some contributions/donations from a broker in Los Angeles,” Sandoval wrote “I came to find out that these contributions/donations were reoccurring (and) they were kickback for purchases of flex repurchase agreements.”

Sandoval wrote that he made “several subsequent trips to Los Angeles” to meet with two other investment advisors, including a man he calls “Peter Simmons.”

McCandless’ affidavit for search warrant identifies a man named Peter Simons, who was an investment advisor to the state from October 1997 to November 1999, during Montoya’s tenure as treasurer. Simons, the affidavit says “is a cooperating witness who has been immunized from prosecution in this investigation. Simons delivered money to Sandoval approximately six times, “in ever increasing amounts” the affidavit says.

“Later on Kent Nelson was introduced to Mr. Montoya by Angelo Garcia,” Sandoval wrote. “Over the next two years all transactions went through them.”

Nelson is a San Diego investment advisor who became a “cooperating witness” against both Montoya and Vigil. Garcia, who was a fundraiser for Vigil, also became a witness for the state.

“After that, Kent Nelson sent money to Angelo, Angelo gave me Michael’s share (and) I gave it to Mr. Montoya,” Sandoval wrote.

“I kept a list of all those transactions that took place (and) there is a book with them also.”

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 6, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Little Miss Chocolate Syrup by The Dirtbombs
Guns For Everyone by The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Shadowline by The Fleshtones
Red Death at 6:14 by The White Stripes
Mean Man by The Detroit Cobras
Wounded World by Mission of Burma
Sunday Drive by The Come Ons
Funny Thing by The Reigning Sound
Sponge Bob Square Pants by The Black Lodge Singers

Ain't It a Shame by Nirvana
True Love by X
Change in the Weather by John Fogerty
Blind Rage by Lou Reed
Connection by The Rolling Stones
The Walking Dead by The Dropkick Murpheys
Livin' in America by Black 47
Certain People I Could Name by They Might Be Giants

Joy by Bettye LaVette
Stepchild by Solomon Burke
Mama Was Right by Howard Tate
Medley: It's All Right/For Sentimental Reasons by Sam Cooke
The Dark End of The Street by Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham
A Dying Man's Plea by Mavis Staples
Soul Survivor by Wilson Pickett

Mysterons by Portishead
The World Spins by Julee Cruise
Stomach Worm by Stereolab
Take My Music Back to the Church by James Blood Ulmer
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

MINUTE MAN ROCK

When my friend Margot sent me an e-mail with the subject line "Really bad music" with a link to the Sadly, No blog I just assumed that it had something to do with Prussian Blue. Both Sadly, No and I find twisted pleasure in those cute Nazi kids singing chirpy little songs about Caucasian supremacy.

But happily no, this was another example of political/musical weirdness.: Wake Up America by The Minutemen Project Band, being hawked by a group called The United American Civil Task Force. Part of the $10 you'll spend on this album -- and spend, I know you will -- go to support the UACTF and part goes to the Minutemen project.

I haven't heard it yet, so I can't honestly say whether it's truly bad music.

But judging from Sadly, No's review, it sounds like a doozy:

My personal favorites are "Boycott France," an angry anti-Gaul rap-metal ditty; "Pancho Villa Stops Here," an anti-immigrant number containing the lyrics "If you hate this country / You're gonna stop right here / We don't need your beans, we don't need your beer ..."

I think it's high time someone finally took action against those undocumented carbohydrates pouring across our border.

You can make up your own mind and listen to samples HERE.

THROUGH THE YEARS WITH FRAN GALLEGOS

In today's New Mexican I wrote a retrospective of the career of former Santa Fe Municipal Judge Fran Gallegos, who resigned Thursday after felony charges of record tampering were filed against her.

As the paper's police and courts reporter for most of the '90s, I covered most those early controversies with Fran.

It didn't make our free Web site, so I'll publish it here.

For Jason Auslander's stories on the resignation, click HERE and HERE


A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 5, 2005

Judge Frances Gallego’s nine-plus years as municipal judge were colorful, controversial and often contentious. Here’s a brief history of her public career.

*November 1994: Gallegos, running as a Green Party candidate, gets 45 percent of the vote in running against Democrat Richard “Buzzy” Padilla for Santa Fe County magistrate judge. Though she lost, her percentage was considered remarkable in the heavily Democratic County.

*March 5, 1996: Longtime Municipal Judge Tom Fiorina, under the cloud of Judicial Standards Commission investigations, loses by about 250 votes in a four-person race to Gallegos.

*May 1996: Less than two months after taking office, Gallegos asks the City Council for a raise. By the end of the year, the council agreed, increasing her salary from $39,500 to $49,500. By the time she leaves office, her salary is $65,000.

*June 1996: Gallegos causes controversy by appearing in a newspaper advertisement for a downtown restaurant. The ad, for the now defunct Fabio’s, showed a picture of the judge with a caption declaring the lobster at Fabio’s “judiciously wonderful.”

*August 1996: Gallegos starts a program that would become a trademark of her tenure in the city court — requiring convicted drunken drivers to wear bright pink baseball caps while performing court-ordered community service work in public places. The program later is expanded into a rainbow of cap colors: green for shoplifters, blue for domestic violence offenders and brown for animal ordinance violators.

*January 1997: During a long-running dispute with city officials over court funding, Gallegos filed notice of intent to sue then-Mayor Debbie Jaramillo, the city manager and several city councilors. By the next month she dropped the idea of suing the city.

*February 1997: Gallegos asks the city to buy her a .38-caliber stainless steel Smith & Wesson Ladysmith handgun for $369.99. The city declined.

*February 1997: Hundreds of Santa Fe residents who thought they’d taken care of traffic tickets — from up to nine years before — receive court summons to failure to appear in court. She acknowledged that many of those summoned were victims of bad record keeping by her predecessor, but Gallegos initially asked those summoned to supply proof that their tickets were already adjudicated. Many ended up paying court costs for the years-old tickets. After criticism, Gallegos relented and stopped the summonses. (For full story CLICK HERE)

*May 1997: Following a spate of unfavorable news coverage, Gallegos decides to restrict the hours that members of the news media can request court records to one hour a week. She quickly retreated from this plan.

*1998: Gallegos begins an alternative sentencing Drug Court program for drunken drivers and drug abusers. The program requires meditation and acupuncture.

*Jan. 10, 1999: A friend of Gallegos, who was married to a state legislator, was arrested on drunken driving charges shortly after midnight. The man called Gallegos at home. She immediately went to the county jail and ordered him released — contradicting her own policy of requiring DWI suspects to spend at least 12 hours in jail.

*Feb. 29, 2000: At a candidate forum where opponents attacked the “pink hat” program, Gallegos answered, “...sure I got carried away.” Then she made a little curtsy and said, “But I’m ‘Girl Judge.’ That’s what we do.”

*March 7, 2000: Gallegos is re-elected to a second three-year term. She defeated Fiorina and a third candidate by a healthy margin.

*August 13, 2000: Gallegos marries Michael Trujillo in a ceremony on the Plaza. The couple later divorce.

*April 2003: Gallegos is formally reprimanded by the state Supreme Court for not living within the city limits of Santa Fe for nearly two years. She said she moved to a home south of the city limits after she separated from Trujillo in the winter of 2000.

*June 2003: Following heated criticism Gallegos stops her practice of ordering traffic offenders to attend a for-profit driving-safety course taught by her chief administrator Mary Ann Caldwell. Gallegos allowed Caldwell to use the court’s facilities and property for the class. Caldwell reportedly made $30,000 during a five-year-period for the safety course. During the height of this controversy television investigative reporter Larry Barker chases Gallegos into a court restroom, where she stayed instead of talking to Barker. She finally emerged, pushing past Barker, telling him she had a meeting to attend.

*August 2003: Gallegos gets national attention for her New Agey alternative sentencing program, in which traffic offenders can learn tai chi and Japanese tea ceremonies.
*March 2, 2004: Gallegos reelected, defeating three opponents.

*July 1, 2004: State District Judge Steve Pfeffer rules that Gallegos had not been properly advising drunken driving defendants of their legal rights.

* March 2005: The state Supreme Court disciplines Gallegos for the Caldwell traffic classes, ordering Gallegos to take a course in judicial ethics.

*May 12: Gallegos confirms she is pondering a campaign for Santa Fe mayor in 2006.

*August 2 Gallegos decides she won’t run for mayor.

*August 7: The New Mexican reveals accusations that Gallegos systematically altered records of numerous DWI cases, often inflating jail sentences and the amount of time defendants spent behind bars.

*August 12: State Judicial Standards Commission recommends Gallegos be immediately suspended for “a myriad of ethical violations.” Besides the altered records, the commission said Gallegos failed to properly instruct defendants on their options for making pleas.

*August 24: The Supreme Court suspends Gallegos for 90 days while Judicial Standards conducts further investigations.

*August 30: The City Council appoints Sonya Carrasco-Trujillo, deputy chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Diane Denish as a temporary municipal judge.

*Sept. 1: Caldwell resigns.

*Sept. 13: Carrasco-Trujillo stops “pink hat” program.

*Oct. 11: The City Council votes not to pay Gallegos’ legal bills beyond the $20,000 initially approved.

*Nov. 3: Gallegos resigns after state police file three felony counts of tampering with public records.