{"id":1589,"date":"2007-04-16T13:25:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-16T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/martinez-details-additional-complaints-about-iglesias\/"},"modified":"2007-04-16T13:25:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-16T19:25:00","slug":"martinez-details-additional-complaints-about-iglesias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/04\/martinez-details-additional-complaints-about-iglesias\/","title":{"rendered":"Martinez details additional complaints about Iglesias"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I spoke with Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez<\/a> today about her comments published in the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> regarding former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias<\/a>, and she said she can detail a number of examples of problems with Iglesias\u2019 leadership. <\/p>\n

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

Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said she\u2019s speaking publicly now because many have defended Iglesias as a top prosecutor who was doing a stellar job.<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s well documented that officials with the Justice Department thought highly of Iglesias throughout most of his tenure despite the repeated complaints of U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici<\/a>, R-N.M., and others.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>But Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> provided two examples of what she said were poor decisions by Iglesias. About two years ago, Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said, a deputy with the Do\u00f1a Ana County Sheriff\u2019s Department tried to take an undocumented immigrant through a border patrol checkpoint. Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said the deputy was not on duty, but placed his badge \u201cin a way that the Border Patrol could see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

It was an incident Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said ultimately ended with the deputy\u2019s firing. But the case was never thoroughly investigated or prosecuted.<\/p>\n

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

State district attorneys can\u2019t prosecute immigration violations. Only the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> attorney\u2019s office can do that.<\/p>\n

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

Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said she doubted the case would be prosecuted by Iglesias\u2019 office. At an earlier meeting with concerned citizens from Hatch, an official from the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> attorney\u2019s office said his office wouldn\u2019t pursue an immigration smuggling case there because it was too small. She said she believes the office refused to prosecute cases that involved the smuggling of fewer than five immigrants.<\/p>\n

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

Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said she sent the Border Patrol report on the incident directly to Iglesias and argued that, because it was an \u201cunusual situation\u201d involving a law enforcement officer, any threshold for pursuing cases should be disregarded.<\/p>\n

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

She said she received no response from Iglesias.<\/p>\n

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

Another example of poor judgment, Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said, involved the Welcome Inn case. Miguel O. \u201cMike\u201d Gonzales and his son, Michael Gonzales Jr., the bar\u2019s owners, were arrested in 1999 and charged with running a crime ring out of the business. At the time, the elder Gonzales was the Mesilla marshal, and was accused of abusing that position to help run the crime ring.<\/p>\n

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

The case was a joint state-federal investigation on which the U.S.<\/st1:country-region> attorney\u2019s office worked, but was given to Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> to prosecute.<\/p>\n

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

Both Gonzaleses worked with Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> under then-District Attorney Greg Valdez in the mid-1990s. Valdez<\/st1:city> fired Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. She sued for wrongful termination and won a settlement that allowed her to switch parties and beat Valdez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> in the next election, and there has been bad blood ever since.<\/p>\n

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

After a protracted legal battle, the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in 2006 that Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and her office could not prosecute the case because of the conflict. Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> tried to get the attorney general to prosecute, but was told there weren\u2019t enough resources. She then went to the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> attorney\u2019s office but, even though it had helped investigate the case, her request was denied.<\/p>\n

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

Having nowhere else to turn, Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> dropped the charges. She said today that the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> attorney should have taken the public corruption case, and called its refusal to do so \u201cfrustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

She said the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> attorney\u2019s office has often said it didn\u2019t have the resources to prosecute some cases, but said that\u2019s a poor excuse.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIf I get seven murders or 20 murders, I have to prosecute them all,\u201d Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said. \u201cI don\u2019t get to say, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve met my quota.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spoke with Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez today about her comments published in the Albuquerque Journal regarding former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, and she said she can detail a number of examples of problems with Iglesias\u2019 leadership. Martinez said she\u2019s speaking publicly now because many have defended Iglesias as a top prosecutor […]<\/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-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","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=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}