{"id":1705,"date":"2007-05-10T15:03:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-10T21:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/police-reporting-directly-to-martin-on-facilities-probe\/"},"modified":"2007-05-10T15:03:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-10T21:03:00","slug":"police-reporting-directly-to-martin-on-facilities-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/police-reporting-directly-to-martin-on-facilities-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Police reporting directly to Martin on facilities probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Police investigators looking into the alleged misuse of funds and resources by employees of New Mexico State University\u2019s<\/a> facilities department will report to President Michael Martin<\/a> to ensure the integrity of the investigation. <\/p>\n

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

The university police department is under Ben Woods, senior vice president for planning, physical resources and university relations. Woods also oversees the Office of Facilities and Services<\/a>, which police are investigating.<\/p>\n

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

Martin said \u201cthe people who came forward\u201d with allegations reported them directly to him. Because of that, and to ensure the integrity of the investigation, the president said he decided to have police report to him instead of Woods. He said that decision has nothing to do with whether he trusts Woods, but he wanted \u201cto protect people from the accusation that there was something improper.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWe\u2019re the stewards of the people\u2019s investment,\u201d Martin said. \u201cEven if I have some skepticism about the accusations, any accusation is going to be taken seriously.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

Martin confirmed that \u201ca couple\u201d of employees have been placed on leave as a result of the allegations that employees were using university funds and resources for personal construction projects on their homes. He said no one has been fired and he doesn\u2019t yet know whether the investigation will lead to terminations.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

He declined to name the employees on leave.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

Martin said investigators don\u2019t yet know whether there was anything improper or the scope of the problem, if there was one, but said he believes they will know a more in a couple of weeks.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

The investigation was first reported today by the Round Up<\/a>, which said three employees were accused and suspended: <\/span>Richard MacRorie, associate vice president of facilities for planning, physical resources and university relations; Paul Herrera, director of facilities maintenance for the department\u2019s operations division; and John Salopek, construction supervisor for the department\u2019s roofing and construction division.<\/p>\n

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

MacRorie has been reinstated, the paper reported.<\/p>\n

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

Martin said the student newspaper\u2019s article was \u201cabout 45 percent\u201d accurate, but didn\u2019t elaborate. He also said he didn\u2019t want to discuss specifics of the allegations or investigation.<\/p>\n

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

University Police Chief Jaime Chavez said he can\u2019t comment on the investigation or Martin\u2019s decision to have police report to him, but said investigators would reveal \u201cthe full story\u201d when they can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police investigators looking into the alleged misuse of funds and resources by employees of New Mexico State University\u2019s facilities department will report to President Michael Martin to ensure the integrity of the investigation. The university police department is under Ben Woods, senior vice president for planning, physical resources and university relations. Woods also oversees the […]<\/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-1705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705","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=1705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}