{"id":1492,"date":"2007-03-29T17:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-29T23:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/03\/aragon-others-indicted-in-public-corruption-scandal\/"},"modified":"2007-03-29T17:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-29T23:06:00","slug":"aragon-others-indicted-in-public-corruption-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/03\/aragon-others-indicted-in-public-corruption-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Aragon, others indicted in public corruption scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Former Senate President Manny Aragon was indicted today, along with three others, in a massive public corruption scandal involving construction of the metro court facility in Bernalillo<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Aragon<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> is facing one count of conspiracy, seven counts of fraud, 11 counts of money laundering and other charges. Read the indictment by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have an update on this soon.<\/p>\n

\n

Update, 5:15 p.m. <\/span>Also indicted were former metro court Administrator Toby Martinez, his wife Sandra, and Raul Parra, a contractor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n

Three others entered into plea bargains, including former Albuquerque Mayor Ken Schultz; Manuel Guara, subcontractor for Parra; and Marc Schiff, president of the architecture firm that designed the courthouse.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That firm also designed the new Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename> Government<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype> in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, and Schiff was intimately involved in that project. The awarding of that contract to Schiff\u2019s firm, which was then named Design Collaborative Southwest, was mired in scandal, which I\u2019ll write about later.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The three who entered into plea bargains will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n

\n

Update, 5:30 p.m.<\/span> The charges are related to construction of the approximately $50 million metro court facility that was completed in 2004. The investigation looked at other government buildings in Albuquerque<\/st1:city>, and was rumored for a time to have included the Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> facility, but the charges relate only to the metro court.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors base the charges on the loss of $4.2 million to taxpayers, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. State prosecutors will assists in the case, the news release states.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot here, so I\u2019m going to give you some links to follow, then work on a couple of additional articles on this. Check back for additional coverage later this evening.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Links<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Department of Justice news release<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Indictment against Aragon and others<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Schiff plea bargain<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Schultz plea bargain<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Guara plea bargain<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Albuquerque Tribune special coverage<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Albuquerque Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Tribune\u2019s profiles of those involved<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Highlights of Aragon\u2019s career<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly identified Guara.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Senate President Manny Aragon was indicted today, along with three others, in a massive public corruption scandal involving construction of the metro court facility in Bernalillo County. Aragon is facing one count of conspiracy, seven counts of fraud, 11 counts of money laundering and other charges. Read the indictment by clicking here. I\u2019ll have […]<\/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-1492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492","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=1492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}