Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court Judge Theresa Gomez will be suspended without pay for her role in the state housing authority scandal.
In an order issued Wednesday, the New Mexico Supreme Court accepted a petition from the state’s Judicial Standards Commission and suspended Gomez for two weeks without pay. In addition, Gomez will have to pay $17,000 in back rent to the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority.
The order comes about a month after the high court rejected the commission’s petition to reprimand Gomez and require her to pay the back rent. The court’s members said at the time that they wanted to suspend the judge and asked the commission to come back with a new petition. The suspension was agreed upon by the commission and Gomez.
Gomez lived rent-free, for 20 months, in a home owned by the housing authority, an organization whose mission is providing housing for low-income people. At the time, Gomez was making $93,000 per year. She also dismissed traffic citations and cancelled an arrest warrant for Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos, the man who ran Region III at the time.
As part of an agreement with the commission, Gomez admitted that her actions violated the ethical requirements of her job. The commission has said it originally didn’t seek the suspension because there was “an absence of substantial documentary evidence” to justify it. The high court disagreed.
The state’s affordable housing system collapsed last year when the Region III authority defaulted on $5 million in bonds it owed the state. Those bonds were to be spent on affordable housing projects, but almost $900,000 went to Gallegos as salary, benefits and a questionable loan, and some $700,000 was loaned to the
The state auditor is currently conducting a review to try to determine the extent of the problems, and the attorney general is investigating.