{"id":3745,"date":"2008-09-22T21:27:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/09\/slow-moving-housing-authority-probe-frustrates-some\/"},"modified":"2008-09-22T21:27:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-23T03:27:00","slug":"slow-moving-housing-authority-probe-frustrates-some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/09\/slow-moving-housing-authority-probe-frustrates-some\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow-moving housing authority probe frustrates some"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The office of Attorney General Gary King<\/a> still has nothing new to report about the more than two-year-old investigation of the scandal that toppled most of the state\u2019s affordable housing system in 2006, and that has some frustrated. <\/p>\n

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

\u201cWe are still reviewing info,\u201d King\u2019s spokesman, Phil Sisneros, said late last week.<\/p>\n

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

When he took office almost 21 months ago, King pledged to make the investigation a top priority<\/a>. But Chris Herbert, executive director of the Region VI housing authority, which survived the collapse of most of the state system, said he\u2019s \u201cfrustrated by the lack of any action.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThose of us involved in the low-income housing industry would like to see some justice actually done,\u201d he said. \u201cThose who perpetrated the wrongdoing continue to go unpunished, while their legitimate counterparts in other parts of the state are saddled with a black eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

There has been some response to the scandal. The AG obtained court orders to boot three tenants from homes owned by the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority because they didn\u2019t qualify for affordable housing — two employees of the authority and a board member — but that action was initiated under the previous AG, not King. A Bernalillo County Metro Court<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> judge was disciplined by the Supreme Court for a conflict of interest related to the scandal. And the State Investment Council<\/a> is suing in an attempt to recover taxpayer money that was lost when Region III defaulted in 2006 on $5 million in bonds it owed the state.<\/p>\n

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

But there have been no criminal charges in the case, which has been under investigation by the AG\u2019s office since before King became the attorney general.<\/p>\n

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

A quick recap of the scandal: The AG\u2019s criminal investigation began almost two years ago when the investment council asked then-AG Patricia Madrid<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> to look into the situation. That came after the council released a report<\/a> that found widespread misuse of the bond money, which was supposed to be spent on houses. Instead, almost $600,000 went to former Region III Director Vincent \u201cSmiley\u201d Gallegos as salary and benefits. Almost $700,000 was loaned to the Las Cruces-based Region VII authority, which did little to provide affordable housing and has since shut down.<\/p>\n

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

Perhaps the most intriguing misuse of money revealed in the investment council report was a $300,000 loan the housing authority made to a private company owned by Gallegos under the guise of purchasing more than 30 lots in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> — lots that had already been purchased by the authority.<\/p>\n

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

Gallegos repaid the loan, with interest, on July 31 of 2006, the day before he resigned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The office of Attorney General Gary King still has nothing new to report about the more than two-year-old investigation of the scandal that toppled most of the state\u2019s affordable housing system in 2006, and that has some frustrated. \u201cWe are still reviewing info,\u201d King\u2019s spokesman, Phil Sisneros, said late last week. When he took office […]<\/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-3745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745","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=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}