{"id":17476,"date":"2010-05-19T13:59:33","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T19:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17476"},"modified":"2010-05-20T08:05:20","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T14:05:20","slug":"montoya-defends-self-accuses-vanzi-of-racism-sexism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/montoya-defends-self-accuses-vanzi-of-racism-sexism\/","title":{"rendered":"Montoya defends self, accuses Vanzi of racism, sexism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Dennis W. Montoya<\/p><\/div>\n

Embattled appellate judge candidate Dennis W. Montoya<\/a> is defending himself against formal allegations of misconduct in a posting<\/a> on his Web site and accusing the judge he\u2019s trying to unseat, Linda Vanzi<\/a>, of having sexist and racist motives for bringing charges against him.<\/p>\n

The state Supreme Court\u2019s disciplinary board has asked the high court to immediately suspend Montoya<\/a> from practicing law. The board accused Montoya of misconduct<\/a> including fraud, deceit, lying to the court, having a conflict of interest, failing to adequately represent a client and failing to adequately account for and distinguish client funds from his own \u2013 allegations that stem from a 2008 complaint filed by Vanzi, who Montoya is trying to unseat in the June 1 Democratic primary.<\/p>\n

Montoya now faces nine additional complaints, according to the disciplinary board\u2019s Friday filing<\/a> seeking Montoya\u2019s immediate suspension.<\/p>\n

The posting on Montoya\u2019s Web site calls him a \u201crespected Civil Rights lawyer in New Mexico\u201d and states that he \u201cfaces racist and sexist attacks from Vanzi, who obviously has the support of New Mexico\u2019s Chief Disciplinary Counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling himself more experienced than Vanzi, Montoya says the judge\u2019s \u201conly recourse, it seems, is to throw mud in a series of hate mails in which she talks trash about Montoya but says little or nothing about herself.\u201d Vanzi has sent out two mailers (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) and put up a Web site<\/a> highlighting the allegations against Montoya.<\/p>\n

The charges against Montoya<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

The charges that stem from the complaint filed by Vanzi relate to a case Vanzi heard when she was a district judge in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

The case followed the 2002 automobile accident death of Cody Utley, an oil rig worker in the Four Corners area. Montoya represented Utley\u2019s girlfriend, their son and the girlfriend\u2019s daughter from another relationship, according to the\u00a0Albuquerque Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vanzi, who oversaw a settlement between Utley\u2019s family members and the manufacturer of the tires on Utley\u2019s vehicle, appointed a guardian for Utley\u2019s son after questions arose about who was Utley\u2019s legal heir, the Journal reported.<\/p>\n

Montoya ultimately settled claims in the wrongful-death lawsuit without ensuring that money was set aside for Utley\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

Among the charges brought by the disciplinary board are that Montoya lied to Probate and Worker\u2019s Compensation courts in claiming that Utley and his girlfriend were married and that the girlfriend\u2019s daughter was also Utley\u2019s daughter; that he lied to the guardian Vanzi appointed to represent Utley\u2019s son; that, in representing both Utley\u2019s girlfriend and their son, he had a conflict of interest; and that he failed to account for and safeguard clients\u2019 money.<\/p>\n

Montoya\u2019s defense<\/h3>\n

In the Web site posting, the Montoya campaign states that Utley and the boy\u2019s mother lived in Utah \u201cfor a sufficient time to form a common-law marriage,\u201d and that a probate judge in Farmington signed an order upholding their marriage \u2013 but a judge later determined that the marriage \u201cwas not sufficiently solemnized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether the marriage was sufficiently solemnized remains disputed in the Court,\u201d the posting states. \u201cHowever, it is clear from the Court record that Mr. Montoya did not simply make up the idea that Tresa Kosec was the lawful wife of Cody Utley.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the posting states, if the judge was right that their marriage wasn\u2019t sufficiently solemnized, \u201cthen the bulk of the money that Dennis W. Montoya got from the people who caused Cody Utley\u2019s death should go to Mr. Utley\u2019s child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing a charge related to the fee agreements in the case, the Montoya campaign acknowledged that \u201cthere was some confusion during the execution of the fee agreements.\u201d He said they \u201ccould have been drawn up better, to be sure, but the fact is that no one lost any money.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hard-hitting allegation<\/h3>\n

Montoya concludes with a hard-hitting allegation.<\/p>\n

\u201cVanzi\u2019s tactics, are disgraceful, hate-filled, racist and sexist, designed to denigrate and punish Mr. Montoya for engaging in the democratic process, and to rob the Hispanic community of a candidate, and completely unworthy of an individual who professes to be of judicial caliber,\u201d the posting on Montoya\u2019s Web site states.<\/p>\n

Montoya did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation of how he backs up his claims of racism and sexism against Vanzi. I\u2019ve also asked Vanzi\u2019s campaign for comment.<\/p>\n

If I get comment from either, you\u2019ll read it here.<\/p>\n

Update, 2:50 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vanzi\u2019s campaign manager, Sandra Wechsler, said this:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Disciplinary Board just recommended to the Supreme Court that Dennis Montoya be suspended immediately from practicing law because he could be a danger to the public. A hearing has been set. He wasn\u2019t able to follow basic public financing rules that numerous other candidates have done, is possibly facing very serious consequences for repeated unethical acts that have been widely publicized in the press, and now wants to divert attention away from his self-inflicted controversies by accusing Judge Vanzi of being racist and sexist. We\u2019re even more disappointed in Mr. Montoya now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: Embattled appellate judge candidate Dennis W. Montoya is defending himself against formal allegations of misconduct in a posting on his Web site and accusing the judge he\u2019s trying to unseat, Linda Vanzi, of having sexist and racist motives for bringing charges against him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,161],"class_list":["post-17476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-judiciary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17476","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=17476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}