{"id":1081,"date":"2007-01-10T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-10T14:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/01\/auditor-balderas-wants-help-from-investigators\/"},"modified":"2007-01-10T08:46:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-10T14:46:00","slug":"auditor-balderas-wants-help-from-investigators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/01\/auditor-balderas-wants-help-from-investigators\/","title":{"rendered":"Auditor Balderas wants help from investigators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RaT8jX7tDxI\/AAAAAAAAATw\/m9D6GLdQu4U\/s1600-h\/Legislature.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RaT8jX7tDxI\/AAAAAAAAATw\/m9D6GLdQu4U\/s200\/Legislature.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018413569447628562\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>State Auditor Hector Balderas will keep a campaign pledge and ask legislators to fund two investigators to help his office took into allegations of public corruption, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/ci_4981778\" target=\"_blank\">Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> is reporting.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Completing audits that reveal potential public corruption has never been a problem but, with three of four special audits of governments in <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">Ana<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> in the past several years, prosecutors didn\u2019t have the resources to adequately investigate the complex, white-collar-crime allegations once they were handed over by the auditor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So the audits were shelved.<a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RaT8eX7tDwI\/AAAAAAAAATo\/jugkoDZ4YQo\/s1600-h\/Balderas,+Hector.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/RaT8eX7tDwI\/AAAAAAAAATo\/jugkoDZ4YQo\/s200\/Balderas,+Hector.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018413483548282626\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Balderas wants to change that. The new investigators would be able to do most of the leg work before handing a case to prosecutors that\u2019s mostly complete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Former State Auditor Domingo Martinez asked legislators several times to provide help in the form of a special investigator and prosecutor in the First Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office, where legislators also fund a prosecutor to handle state tax cases, but legislators refused. There was no political will to fund positions that would thoroughly investigate the state\u2019s leaders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">With the prosecution of the two previous state treasurers and other state Democratic scandals, times have changed. Balderas is a former legislator, and that experience will also help him gain support that <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> could not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In addition to two investigators, Balderas wants two \u201cconstituent representatives,\u201d the Sun-News reported, and would establish a hot line for the public to report fraud and corruption. He may also seek legislation setting the duties of investigators and clarifying the process of moving cases from his office to prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Balderas told the newspaper the office already has a \u201cwhole host of cases\u201d under review, but lacks the resources to properly investigate. Auditors, by training, can identify when something improper has happened, but do not investigate why it happened to determine whether a crime was committed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Balderas said the budget increases already proposed by Gov. Bill Richardson and the Legislative Finance Committee would fund the new employees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State Auditor Hector Balderas will keep a campaign pledge and ask legislators to fund two investigators to help his office took into allegations of public corruption, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting. Completing audits that reveal potential public corruption has never been a problem but, with three of four special audits of governments in Do\u00f1a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}