{"id":31244,"date":"2011-08-22T07:40:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T13:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=31244"},"modified":"2011-10-20T09:52:38","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T15:52:38","slug":"judge-allows-bribery-case-against-murphy-to-move-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/08\/judge-allows-bribery-case-against-murphy-to-move-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge allows bribery case against Murphy to move forward"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

District Judge Mike Murphy<\/p><\/div>\n

A magistrate judge ruled Saturday that a new felony bribery case against District Judge Mike Murphy can move forward.<\/p>\n

From the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing a two-day preliminary hearing that ended Saturday, state Magistrate Judge Conrad Perea concluded there was probable cause to believe Murphy tried to bribe fellow District Judge Lisa Schultz with favorable assignments and help with a potentially damaging Judicial Standards Commission investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn exchange, Murphy wanted Schultz to vote for Douglas Driggers as chief judge of the Third Judicial District in an election last December, special prosecutor Matt Chandler of Clovis has said.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During a two-day hearing in Las Cruces, the judge listened to a tape recording Schultz secretly made of the conversation on which the charge is based. Michael Stout, Murphy\u2019s attorney, argued that Murphy\u2019s offer to \u201cgo out of my way\u201d to help Schultz defend herself against an ethics complaint in exchange for her support for Driggers wasn\u2019t bribery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a crime? To say you are going to help someone out? \u2026 Tell the Judicial Standards Commission you did a good job, not a bad job? This is politicking; it\u2019s lobbying,\u201d the Journal quoted Stout as saying.<\/p>\n

But Perea found there was enough evidence for special prosecutor Matt Chandler to make his case to a jury.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifficult as this decision was, I had to do what I believed was right, with all due respect,\u201d the Journal quoted Perea as telling Murphy.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Stout asked Schultz if she wanted to \u201cbring Mike Murphy down.\u201d She said she doesn\u2019t wish Murphy ill and, by coming forward in this case, she has \u201ceverything to lose and nothing to gain, and I continue to be a whistleblower despite that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of bribery strikes at the heart of American democracy,\u201d the Journal quoted Schultz as saying.<\/p>\n

In addition to this more recent bribery charge<\/a>, Murphy faces bribery charges in another case. In that case, prosecutors\u00a0allege<\/a> that Murphy solicited a bribe from potential judicial applicant Beverly Singleman, told District Judge Lisa Schultz to tell Singleman she needed to pay the bribe, and threatened to destroy Singleman\u2019s reputation for telling others that he solicited a bribe from her.<\/p>\n

Murphy has\u00a0pleaded not guilty<\/a>. No one else has been charged or received notice that they may be indicted in that case.<\/p>\n

Now that Perea has approved the new case moving to district court, Chandler intends to join the two cases, so Murphy could face trial on all charges at once.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that Murphy is charged with paying a bribe for his position.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A magistrate judge ruled Saturday that a new felony bribery case against District Judge Mike Murphy can move forward in spite of a claim from Murphy’s attorney that Murphy’s actions were politicking and lobbying, not bribery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[142,115,216,161,114],"class_list":["post-31244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-judge-murphy","tag-judiciary","tag-public-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31244","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=31244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}