{"id":547,"date":"2006-09-07T06:29:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-07T12:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/09\/result-of-vigil-retrial-will-impact-congressional-race\/"},"modified":"2006-09-07T06:29:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-07T12:29:00","slug":"result-of-vigil-retrial-will-impact-congressional-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/09\/result-of-vigil-retrial-will-impact-congressional-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Result of Vigil retrial will impact congressional race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/1600\/Madrid%2C%20Patricia.6.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/200\/Madrid%2C%20Patricia.6.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>The race between U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid could be decided by the retrial of former state Treasurer Robert Vigil.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Wilson and the Republican Party have been relentless in their attacks on <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:city st=\"on\">Madrid<\/st1:city>, <st1:state st=\"on\">New Mexico<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>\u2019s attorney general, over allegations that she failed to investigate the scandal in the treasurer\u2019s office years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Vigil\u2019s first trial on federal charges of extortion, racketeering and racketeering conspiracy ended with a hung jury in May. In June, <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:state st=\"on\">Madrid<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> announced indictments on state charges against four who testified against Vigil, based on their testimony in the first trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/1600\/Wilson%2C%20Heather.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5892\/2386\/200\/Wilson%2C%20Heather.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Republicans said the indictments were politically motivated and might end up hurting the federal case against Vigil.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">At the start of Vigil\u2019s retrial on Tuesday, Kent Nelson, an investment advisor and key witness in the case, invoked his Fifth Amendment right, citing the indictment by <st1:state st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Madrid<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/news\/state\/490155nm09-06-06.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Albuquerque Journal<\/a>. He will not testify.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That doesn\u2019t ruin the federal case. Nelson\u2019s testimony from the first trial can be admitted, but reading stacks of transcripts or listening to hours and hours of audio recordings might not have the same impact as seeing, in person, the nervous, emotional man who cried on the witness stand the first time around.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Nelson admitted during the first trial that he was the person on videotape handing Vigil money from cash-stuffed envelopes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><st1:state st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Madrid<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> claims her office promised Nelson that testimony he gave in the retrial would not be used against him in the state case, but Nelson\u2019s attorney said it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The other three who are indicted, including Vigil\u2019s predecessor Michael Montoya, have indicated they will testify, according to the Journal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Nelson might be angling for the dismissal of the state charges, realizing as well as anyone else the political implications if Vigil is not convicted. The Republican-controlled U.S. Attorney\u2019s office will likely blame <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:state st=\"on\">Madrid<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> for messing up its case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Regardless of whether he is guilty in a court of law, seeing Vigil walk could have a devastating effect in the court of public opinion for <st1:state st=\"on\">Madrid<\/st1:state>, who, according to this weekend\u2019s Journal poll, was in a statistical dead-heat with <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Stay tuned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The race between U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid could be decided by the retrial of former state Treasurer Robert Vigil. Wilson and the Republican Party have been relentless in their attacks on Madrid, New Mexico\u2019s attorney general, over allegations that she failed to investigate the scandal in the treasurer\u2019s office [&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-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","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=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}