{"id":22288,"date":"2010-10-08T12:54:36","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T18:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22288"},"modified":"2010-10-08T12:54:39","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T18:54:39","slug":"herrera-accuses-whistleblower-of-staging-break-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/10\/herrera-accuses-whistleblower-of-staging-break-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Herrera accuses whistleblower of staging break-in"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mary Herrera<\/p><\/div>\n

Secretary of State Mary Herrera<\/a> is accusing whistleblower A.J. Salazar, a former employee, of staging a break-in at his law office to try to implicate her in an alleged crime and hurt her re-election chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe says somebody broke in. Give me a break,\u201d Herrera said in an interview. \u201c\u2026 I really do think it\u2019s staged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herrera provided no evidence to back up her allegation, but said she thinks Salazar is trying to make it appear as though she committed a crime to help her opponent, Republican Dianna Duran<\/a>, get elected.<\/p>\n

Salazar said Herrera\u2019s allegation is false and slanderous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe secretary certainly knows that I was unwilling to commit crimes for her while I worked for her,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy should I start doing so now by filing a false police report?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer slanderous statement at this point in time demonstrates how desperate this person is to hide the truth,\u201d Salazar added. \u201c\u2026 Secretary Herrera certainly doesn\u2019t need any assistance from me to make her look bad. That\u2019s one area where unfortunately she has excelled on her own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A.J. Salazar<\/p><\/div>\n

Salazar reported to Espa\u00f1ola police last week that his law office was broken into and that files related to his allegations against Herrera, tax records and a smoke detector were taken, according to KOB-TV<\/a> in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

Police confirmed to The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> that they are investigating.<\/p>\n

Salazar has not accused Herrera of being behind the break-in, but was quoted by KUNM radio<\/a> as saying he found it \u201cextremely odd, given the date, 30 days before an election, and given the issues that you hear in the media, that these things were taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his statement to NMPolitics.net, Salazar said he finds it interesting that Herrera is essentially \u201cdenying an accusation that has not even been made against her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the public would rather hear her answer truthfully to what those of us who worked for her know she has done (and continues to do) as an elected official, and what the press has exposed thus far,\u201d Salazar said. \u201cWouldn\u2019t that be far more helpful than what she has provided thus far?\u201d<\/p>\n

Salazar resigned from his job as elections director in March in\u00a0a scathing letter<\/a> in which he accused Herrera of violating the\u00a0Governmental Conduct Act<\/a> and election laws and of running a \u201ccrooked organization.\u201d<\/a> Among his allegations is that Herrera ordered exempt employees to collect signatures for her re-election bid at a meeting held during work hours, that she was improperly soliciting donations from contractors doing business with the office to help fund a training, and that she retaliated against him after he tried to stop those potentially illegal actions.<\/p>\n

Herrera denies the allegations, and says Salazar is disgruntled because he wanted time off from work that she didn\u2019t allow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Salazar shares an office with lawyer Rudy Martin, who is representing two other former employees of the Secretary of State\u2019s Office. Salazar has taken his allegations to the attorney general and FBI. The other two employees \u2013 former Office Manager Manny Vildasol and office spokesman James Flores \u2013 have also taken allegations of criminal activity to the FBI<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Secretary of State Mary Herrera is accusing whistleblower A.J. Salazar, a former employee, of staging a break-in at his law office to try to implicate her in an alleged crime and hurt her re-election chances.<\/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":[108,142,107],"class_list":["post-22288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-crime","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288","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=22288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}