Las Cruces City Manager Terrence Moore (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Las Cruces City Manager Terrence Moore won’t be charged in a probe into two incidents involving him and his ex-wife, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting.
The district attorney’s office confirmed for the newspaper that it had completed a review of the investigation by the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department into injuries Moore’s then-wife suffered in late 2008 and questions surrounding a police report the city manager filed over a prescription-drug incident in January 2009.
“There was insufficient evidence to proceed,” Deputy District Attorney Nelson Goodin was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “What our case would be based on is hearsay.”
That’s because, according to sheriff’s investigator Robyn Gojkovich, Moore’s ex-wife refused to cooperate with the probe.
“If you don’t have a victim, you don’t have a crime,” the Sun-News quoted Gojkovich as saying.
Earlier this year, the sheriff’s department took over what was originally an Las Cruces Police Department probe after the district attorney raised concerns about LCPD investigating a case involving its own boss and urged the transfer. Moore oversees the police chief and, by extension, the police department.
Last year, Las Cruces police closed the case without filing charges. Former Interim Police Chief Pete Bradley said earlier this year that the case was dropped because no one, including Moore’s ex-wife, alleged a crime, and police didn’t have probable cause to proceed.
But LCPD never interviewed Moore, which the sheriff’s department did in its investigation. The result, apparently, was the same: No victim, no crime.
Moore called the investigation nothing more than “a witch hunt – an attempt to discredit me.” The Sun-News quoted him as saying there was “absolutely nothing there.”
The city manager, who has been dogged in recent months by the law enforcement probe and media and city council scrutiny of other situations, announced last week that he will resign at the end of the year. The Sun-News quoted him as saying the law enforcement probe had nothing to do with his decision.