Attorney General Gary King (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
The defendants in a case involving the state’s housing authorities have asked the N.M. Supreme Court to remove Attorney General Gary King and his office from the case.
The appeal to the state’s high court comes after the Court of Appeals ruled that King can prosecute the case even though his office also represents, in a civil capacity, the housing authorities and the State Investment Council (SIC) – whose bonding on behalf of the housing authorities is at the center of the case.
That dual role creates, as the very least, a negative appearance, the defendants argue in a Feb. 14 filing with the Supreme Court.
“At a minimum, the AGO acting as prosecutor and counsel for the interested parties such as the alleged victim SIC and several witnesses creates impermissible opportunities for conflicts to arise, and thus creates the appearance of impropriety,” the filing states.
“The longer this prosecution continues, particularly with the AGO at the helm, the more damage is done to the system’s integrity,” it states.
Former Region III Housing Authority Director Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos, former Region III accountant Dennis M. Kennedy, and former Region III bond attorney Robert Strumor are facing felony charges including fraud and money laundering. A fourth defendant, former Region III attorney David N. Hernandez, is charged with tampering with evidence.
A ‘Chinese wall’
Defendants in the housing authority case and another high-profile case against former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron allege that King’s attorney/client relationship with state agencies creates a conflict when he has to investigate corruption allegations involving one of those agencies.
King defends his office by saying that a “Chinese wall” exists between his civil and criminal divisions. The civil divisions report to King, and the criminal investigations and prosecutions divisions report to Chief Deputy Attorney General Al Lama.
A recent job posting from the AG’s office seeking a new government accountability division director – the employee responsible for investigating public corruption cases – states that the director “reports directly to the attorney general with oversight by the chief deputy attorney general.”
AG spokesman Phil Sisneros said Lama is the director’s “immediate supervisor,” even though all division directors “have some responsibility to report to the attorney general since he is the chief executive of the office.”
“This system has no effect upon our efforts to ensure that no conflicts occur between civil and criminal investigations,” Sisneros said. “… The AG supervises all division directors in the sense that we all take his direction on policy and other matters. But again, on a day-to-day basis, the chief deputy serves as our immediate supervisor.”
Time to ‘draw the line’
The AG told NMPolitics.net last year that his office is fighting the conflict-of-interest allegations in both cases because he believes it is “time to draw the line and say look, this is what has to be done to go after these cases.”
King pointed to the housing authority case and the case against Vigil-Giron as evidence that his office can bring forth public corruption indictments even when the office’s civil side is involved in attorney/client issues with the agencies the criminal side is investigating.