{"id":2229,"date":"2007-09-12T14:28:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-12T20:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/09\/judge-agrees-to-discipline-over-role-in-housing-scandal\/"},"modified":"2007-09-12T14:28:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-12T20:28:00","slug":"judge-agrees-to-discipline-over-role-in-housing-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/09\/judge-agrees-to-discipline-over-role-in-housing-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge agrees to discipline over role in housing scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge who lived rent-free in a home owned by the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority has agreed to a reprimand and to pay $17,000 in back rent, the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> is reporting.<\/p>\n

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

The New Mexico Supreme Court has asked attorneys for Metropolitan Court Judge Theresa Gomez and the Judicial Standards Commission to explain why her punishment shouldn\u2019t be harsher than a reprimand. The court could take action as severe as removing her from the bench.<\/p>\n

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

The news comes eight months after the Journal reported that the judge was living rent-free for 20 months in the $172,000 home, that she had dismissed traffic tickets issued to former Region III Director Vincent \u201cSmiley\u201d Gallegos, and that she didn\u2019t likely qualify for low-income housing even if she had been paying rent. The newspaper also reported at the time that a top aide to the speaker of the House had been similarly living in a home owned by Region III without paying rent.<\/p>\n

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

Meanwhile, an investigation into the housing authority situation by the attorney general and a review being conducted by the state auditor are ongoing. Taxpayers could end up having to pay for $3.7 million of the $5 million in bonds Region III defaulted on last year, a legislative panel was told on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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

The housing authority scandal, initiated when a former board member of the Las Cruces-based Region VII authority blew the whistle, led to the crumbling of the entire state system last year and reform in this year\u2019s legislative session.<\/p>\n

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

Gomez, for her part, admitted to a number of violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct, including a provision requiring her to avoid impropriety or its appearance. The judge\u2019s attorney, in a filing with the high court, said she \u201cnever intended to use her office to the benefit of herself or anyone else,\u201d and \u201cthat her conduct was not willful, intentional or in general bad faith,\u201d the Journal reported.<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s now up to the high court to decide whether the discipline the commission recommends for Gomez is appropriate or harsher sanctions are needed. And, with the attorney general\u2019s criminal investigation and the auditor\u2019s review ongoing, this likely isn\u2019t the end of the fallout from the housing authority scandal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge who lived rent-free in a home owned by the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority has agreed to a reprimand and to pay $17,000 in back rent, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting. The New Mexico Supreme Court has asked attorneys for Metropolitan Court Judge Theresa Gomez and the Judicial Standards Commission to explain why […]<\/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-2229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229","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=2229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}