![\"David](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Gutierrez-David-336x252.jpg\")
Courtesy photo<\/p>
David Gutierrez<\/p><\/div>\n
The office of District Attorney Mark D’Antonio announced the fourth-degree felony charge — and his intent to seek an indictment — Tuesday in a news release.<\/p>\n
“After a thorough investigation, I decided there is enough evidence to present this case to a grand jury,” D’Antonio said.<\/p>\n
The charge is\u00a0using public office to obtain personal benefit, or, in the alternative, failure of a public official to conduct one\u2019s self in a manner that justifies public confidence, or, in the alternative, failure of a public official to disclose conflict of interest, according to the criminal complaint<\/a>\u00a0filed in magistrate court. All are\u00a0fourth-degree felonies that carry a maximum prison sentence of 18 months.<\/p>\n D’Antonio launched his investigation at the request of Commissioner Billy Garrett and others last month. Commissioners had already taken the only steps they could against the independently elected official — calling for Gutierrez to resign<\/a> and voting to not allow him to use a county vehicle or be in county offices except between the hours of\u00a08 a.m. and 5 p.m.<\/p>\n The county has already settled for $68,000<\/a> a lawsuit with the female employee, who Gutierrez admitted he offered\u00a0$2,000<\/a>\u00a0and the erasure of\u00a0a disciplinary write-up\u00a0in exchange\u00a0for sex in a hotel room.\u00a0The woman\u00a0still works for the county but has been transferred out of Gutierrez’s department.<\/p>\n D\u2019Antonio said his office is continuing to investigate civil proceedings that could result in\u00a0Gutierrez’s removal from office.\u00a0Under New Mexico law, the district attorney is authorized to investigate and bring civil action to remove a county official accused of unethical conduct.<\/p>\n In addition, convicted felons can’t hold elected office in New Mexico, so a felony conviction any time this year would also result in Gutierrez being removed from office before his term expires on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n Gutierrez, 61, is in the last year of his second consecutive term as treasurer. Term limits prohibit him from seeking re-election this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do\u00f1a Ana County Treasurer David Gutierrez is facing a felony charge after admitting that he offered to pay a female employee for sex in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[142,115,114],"class_list":["post-133978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-public-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133978","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=133978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}