{"id":38643,"date":"2012-04-03T21:21:54","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T03:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=38643"},"modified":"2012-04-04T06:48:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T12:48:41","slug":"high-court-wont-help-salinas-take-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/04\/high-court-wont-help-salinas-take-office\/","title":{"rendered":"High court won\u2019t help Salinas take office"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sunland

Sunland Park Mayor-elect Daniel Salinas<\/p><\/div>\n

The N.M. Supreme Court declined to do anything today about conditions of release from jail that are preventing Sunland Park Mayor-elect Daniel Salinas from being sworn in.<\/p>\n

Thursday is the deadline to take the oath of office, and Salinas isn\u2019t likely to find a way to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking forward to telling Mr. Salinas that he was going to have conditions modified to be sworn in,\u201d Salinas\u2019 attorney, Joshua Spencer, was quoted by KFOX-TV<\/a> as saying. \u201cMr. Salinas is effectively unemployed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salinas faces felony extortion<\/a> and bribery<\/a> charges and isn\u2019t allowed to step foot in city hall or have contact with any city employee, including a judge who could administer the oath of office.<\/p>\n

According to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, the court\u2019s decision to decline to change the conditions of Salinas\u2019 release, which came after 10 minutes of deliberation, was unanimous.<\/p>\n

What happens next isn\u2019t clear. If Salinas isn\u2019t sworn in by Thursday, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported<\/a> that city officials aren\u2019t sure what to do. From the newspaper:<\/p>\n

\u201cCity Councilor and Mayor Pro Tem Isabel Santos said the city must contact the Secretary of State\u2019s Office to find out how to fill the vacancy. She said an official with the New Mexico Municipal League advised it shouldn\u2019t be filled by holding a special election, but rather the city council should appoint someone.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018We need more information about what we need to do,\u2019 she said.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The mayor-elect was most recently arrested, along with the former interim police chief,\u00a0on bribery charges based on an alleged deal that gave Luis Monarez the police job. Salinas is also facing\u00a0extortion charges stemming from allegations that he and others attempted to get an opponent in the March 6 election to drop out of the race by making a video of him getting a lap-dance and threatening to release it publicly.<\/p>\n

Salinas has pleaded not guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the candidate who appeared in the lap-dance video, Gerardo Hernandez, has said he plans to challenge the election results. Salinas defeated him by 84 votes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His challenge is likely to largely be based on another public corruption case related to the election alleging voter fraud<\/a> that was aimed at helping Salinas win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The N.M. Supreme Court declined to do anything today about conditions of release from jail that are preventing Sunland Park Mayor-elect Daniel Salinas from being sworn in.<\/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":[142,114,167],"class_list":["post-38643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-public-corruption","tag-sunland-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38643","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=38643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}