{"id":3839,"date":"2008-10-13T10:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/10\/metro-court-defendant-admits-stealing-2-million\/"},"modified":"2008-10-13T10:25:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T16:25:00","slug":"metro-court-defendant-admits-stealing-2-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/10\/metro-court-defendant-admits-stealing-2-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Metro court defendant admits stealing $2 million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">One of the defendants in the <st1:street st=\"on\"><st1:address st=\"on\">Bernalillo County Metro Court<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> scandal changed his plea on Friday and admitted to taking more than $2 million form taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In admitting that he successfully conspired to steal what prosecutors say added up to $4.2 million during construction of the $83 million facility, Toby Martinez, former administrator of the court, could face up to 45 years in prison. Prosecutors agreed to seek less in exchange for his testimony against the other defendants, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/news\/metro\/111110191777newsmetro10-11-08.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Albuquerque Journal<\/a> is reporting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> is the fourth to plead guilty in the case, while four others, including former Senate President Manny Aragon, are still facing felony charges including conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. Read the indictment by clicking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/news\/pdf\/courthouse08232007.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">One interesting point from Friday\u2019s plea bargain, according to the Journal: <st1:city st=\"on\">Martinez<\/st1:city> said in the plea agreement that he \u201cpersonally observed\u201d one of the other men who has entered into a plea bargain, Marc Schiff, \u201cmake a delivery of bulk cash to Senator <st1:country-region st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Aragon<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>.\u201d He says the cash \u201cconstituted (his) share of criminally derived proceeds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Under the plea agreement, <st1:city st=\"on\">Martinez<\/st1:city> agreed to forfeit $600,000 in mail-fraud proceeds that have been invested in a hotel and casino in <st1:state st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Tennessee<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, the Journal is reporting, in addition to a 2005 Lexus and other real estate and bank accounts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s wife is still facing charges. She and the others are scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 28, but the trial could be delayed as other defendants\u2019 attorneys try to figure out how to shift strategy in response to <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Martinez<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s plea agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the defendants in the Bernalillo County Metro Court scandal changed his plea on Friday and admitted to taking more than $2 million form taxpayers. In admitting that he successfully conspired to steal what prosecutors say added up to $4.2 million during construction of the $83 million facility, Toby Martinez, former administrator of the [&hellip;]<\/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-3839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3839","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=3839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}