{"id":4836,"date":"2009-08-21T15:41:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T21:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/defendant-once-carried-out-firing-of-ag-prosecutor\/"},"modified":"2009-12-10T08:21:20","modified_gmt":"2009-12-10T15:21:20","slug":"defendant-once-carried-out-firing-of-ag-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/defendant-once-carried-out-firing-of-ag-prosecutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Defendant once carried out firing of AG prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Attorneys for the defendants are set to argue that AG King\u2019s office has a conflict and should be removed from the case<\/span><\/p>\n

One of two assistant attorney generals prosecuting the case against former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron<\/a> and three others was once fired by one of the defendants in the case, former AG employee Elizabeth Kupfer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fact that a prosecutor on the case is charged with trying to secure a conviction against a woman who carried out his firing is one of the main points defense attorneys plan to cite in arguing that current AG Gary King\u2019s<\/a> office has no business prosecuting the case.<\/p>\n

Kupfer\u2019s attorney, Hank Farrah, confirmed in an interview that Kupfer carried out the firing of Assistant Attorney General Chris Lackmann sometime during the administration of former AG Patricia Madrid<\/a>, who ordered the firing. Farrah would not reveal other details.<\/p>\n

During Madrid\u2019s administration — and the time of the alleged crimes — Kupfer was the administrative services director in the AG\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Lackmann was rehired sometime after King took office in 2007, and is now assigned to prosecute the case along with Assistant Attorney General Ann Badway.<\/p>\n

Vigil-Giron, Kupfer and the others under indictment — lobbyist Joseph Kupfer<\/a>, who is Elizabeth\u2019s husband, and media consultant Armando Gutierrez — each face 50 counts including money laundering, fraud, soliciting or receiving kickbacks and tax evasion. They\u2019re accused of bilking taxpayers out of millions of dollars between 2004 and 2006 by falsifying invoices to the secretary of state\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy client used to work at the AG\u2019s office and she knows the people involved,\u201d Farrah said when asked to explain why he believes the AG\u2019s office has a conflict. Later, after being asked, he confirmed that Elizabeth Kupfer carried out the firing of Lackmann.<\/p>\n

If King\u2019s office is taken off the case, it would likely be taken over by a district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Defense attorney says AG has \u2018numerous conflicts\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Miles Hanisee, Gutierrez\u2019s attorney, said the AG\u2019s office has numerous conflicts that should prevent it from prosecuting the case. Gutierrez, he said, once had a contract with the AG\u2019s office and \u201cworked closely with persons employed at high levels in the AG\u2019s office.\u201d Hanisee also said the contract between the secretary of state\u2019s office and Gutierrez that\u2019s at the center of the AG\u2019s criminal case was \u201capproved by the AG\u2019s office\u201d and \u201cused a template form that is repeatedly used in the AG\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those are some of \u201cthe number of pervasive conflicts that impair the attorney general\u2019s ability to make prosecuting decisions and, even more troubling, impair our ability to call witnesses to give unbiased testimony, because those witnesses now answer to Attorney General King,\u201d Hanisee said.<\/p>\n

Phil Sisneros, the AG\u2019s spokesman, said he could not comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to ensure a fair hearing on all of the evidence, we have to remain sure that anything we say won\u2019t prejudice the case in any way, and therefore we prefer to do all of our talking at trial,\u201d Sisneros said.<\/p>\n

Madrid could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of two assistant attorney generals prosecuting the case against former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron and three others was once fired by one of the defendants in the case, former AG employee Elizabeth Kupfer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-4836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-secretary-of-state-scandal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836","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=4836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}