Aragon, others indicted in public corruption scandal

Former Senate President Manny Aragon was indicted today, along with three others, in a massive public corruption scandal involving construction of the metro court facility in Bernalillo County.

Aragon is facing one count of conspiracy, seven counts of fraud, 11 counts of money laundering and other charges. Read the indictment by clicking here.

I’ll have an update on this soon.

Update, 5:15 p.m. Also indicted were former metro court Administrator Toby Martinez, his wife Sandra, and Raul Parra, a contractor.

Three others entered into plea bargains, including former Albuquerque Mayor Ken Schultz; Manuel Guara, subcontractor for Parra; and Marc Schiff, president of the architecture firm that designed the courthouse.

That firm also designed the new Doña Ana County Government Center in Las Cruces, and Schiff was intimately involved in that project. The awarding of that contract to Schiff’s firm, which was then named Design Collaborative Southwest, was mired in scandal, which I’ll write about later.

The three who entered into plea bargains will be sentenced at a later date.

Update, 5:30 p.m. The charges are related to construction of the approximately $50 million metro court facility that was completed in 2004. The investigation looked at other government buildings in Albuquerque, and was rumored for a time to have included the Doña Ana County facility, but the charges relate only to the metro court.

Federal prosecutors base the charges on the loss of $4.2 million to taxpayers, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. State prosecutors will assists in the case, the news release states.

There’s a lot here, so I’m going to give you some links to follow, then work on a couple of additional articles on this. Check back for additional coverage later this evening.

Links

Department of Justice news release

Indictment against Aragon and others

Schiff plea bargain

Schultz plea bargain

Guara plea bargain

Albuquerque Tribune special coverage

Albuquerque Journal

Tribune’s profiles of those involved

Highlights of Aragon’s career

A prior version of this posting incorrectly identified Guara.