Elephant Butte (Photo by SouthwestUSA/flickr.com)
If Gov. Bill Richardson and his Chief of Staff Brian Condit hung around the scene of a boat crash they were involved in for 30 minutes in last weekend, why didn’t officers who say they arrived 20 minutes after the crash see them there?
That’s the question being asked after the governor made a statement Friday about how long they hung around the accident at Elephant Butte.
The New Mexico Independent has the scoop:
“Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday that he and his party stayed 30 minutes at the scene of Saturday’s houseboat accident at Elephant Butte State Park.
“But the eyewitness who told NMI the governor left within two or three minutes is standing firm on his version of the events.
“And the two parks officers who responded to last Saturday’s accident bolstered that account late Friday, when they said through an agency spokesperson that they did not see the governor or his chief of staff, Brian Condit, when they arrived on the scene, 20 minutes after the crash.”
The exact wording of Richardson’s statement, according to the Independent, was, “First of all, it was 30 minutes that we waited.”
The Independent article was published late Friday. On Saturday, the Albuquerque Journal published this statement from Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos:
“Mr. Fay, the owner of the boat, stayed at the scene. Nobody else was required to stay, although the governor and Brian Condit stayed in the vicinity for about 30 minutes before leaving for a dinner engagement.
“Condit left his cell phone number with Mr. Fay and was available for the rest of the evening.”
In the vicinity? What does that mean?
You might recall the Independent previously publishing an article in which some disputed the assertion that Condit was not required to stick around.