{"id":4612,"date":"2009-05-29T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T22:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/state-agencies-deny-requests-for-subpoenas\/"},"modified":"2009-05-29T16:29:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T22:29:00","slug":"state-agencies-deny-requests-for-subpoenas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/state-agencies-deny-requests-for-subpoenas\/","title":{"rendered":"State agencies deny requests for subpoenas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Like the New Mexico Finance Authority, investment agencies refuse to release subpoenas from the U.S. attorney\u2019s office<\/span><\/p>\n

The State Investment Council<\/a> (SIC) and Educational Retirement Board<\/a> (ERB) denied today my requests under the state\u2019s public records act for copies of any subpoenas related to investments that were sent to the agencies by the U.S. attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

In denying my request in a letter<\/a> sent this afternoon, ERB General Counsel Christopher G. Schatzman cited the exemption to the state\u2019s Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a> that allows for denial \u201cas otherwise provided by law,\u201d and wrote in his letter that the federal public records law in some instances exempts records compiled for law enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n

While New Mexico courts have not addressed whether that federal exemption applies to state law, some other states\u2019 courts have said it does apply there, according to Schatzman\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n

The SIC\u2019s letter<\/a>, from Public Information Officer Charles Wollmann, says essentially the same thing in denying my request.<\/p>\n

The responses from the ERB and SIC are different from those I received recently from two other state agencies that have been subpoenaed in federal investigations. The governor\u2019s office has released the subpoena<\/a> it has received in the federal probe of allegations of pay to play in the Richardson administration. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the New Mexico Finance Authority<\/a> (NMFA) has denied my request<\/a> for the subpoena it received in the pay to play probe. My business, Haussamen Publications, which publishes this site, has sued the NMFA<\/a> to try to force the release of that subpoena. The lawsuit is pending.<\/p>\n

In denying that request, the NMFA also cites the \u201cas otherwise provided by law\u201d exemption to the state\u2019s public records act, but justifies that with a passage from a letter that accompanied a subpoena the grand jury sent to NMFA. That passage states that subpoenas \u201cissued in connection with proceedings before a grand jury are specifically exempt from the customer notification requirements of the Right to Financial Privacy Act<\/a>\u2026 and disclosure under certain circumstances is prohibited\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of ordering the NMFA to keep the subpoena secret, however, the letter from the U.S. attorney that accompanies the subpoena states that \u201cPremature disclosure of this subpoena for records might impede the investigation in this case. Therefore, you are requested to not disclose the existence of this subpoena.\u201d<\/p>\n

We already knew<\/a> that the SIC and ERB had been subpoenaed by the U.S. attorney\u2019s office. The assumption is that the subpoenas relate to the widening investment probe that has led to criminal charges in New York and has spread to some 30 other states, the most prominent being New Mexico.<\/p>\n

One new fact revealed today: The ERB, according to its letter denying my records request, has received two subpoenas. The letter from the SIC doesn\u2019t state how many subpoenas that agency has received.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like the New Mexico Finance Authority, investment agencies refuse to release subpoenas from the U.S. attorney\u2019s office The State Investment Council (SIC) and Educational Retirement Board (ERB) denied today my requests under the state\u2019s public records act for copies of any subpoenas related to investments that were sent to the agencies by the U.S. attorney\u2019s […]<\/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-4612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612","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=4612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}