{"id":5740,"date":"2009-09-03T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2009-12-10T08:21:14","modified_gmt":"2009-12-10T15:21:14","slug":"joseph-kupfer-also-worked-for-vigil-giron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/09\/joseph-kupfer-also-worked-for-vigil-giron\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Kupfer also worked for Vigil-Giron"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rebecca

Rebecca Vigil-Giron<\/p><\/div>\n

Indicted consultant had his own contract with the secretary of state while also receiving allegedly illegal payments through another contractor<\/h4>\n

Joseph Kupfer<\/a>, one of four people indicted in the case involving former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron<\/a>, was working during the time of the alleged crimes as a consultant in Vigil-Giron\u2019s office, documents show.<\/p>\n

He was paid tens of thousands of dollars to advise Vigil-Giron on the use of federal Help America Vote Act<\/a> (HAVA) funds to ensure disabled people could vote in the 2004 and 2006 elections, according to documents obtained from the Secretary of State\u2019s Office through a records request.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Kupfer was working as a subcontractor for another defendant in the case, media consultant Armando Gutierrez, according to Gutierrez\u2019s attorney<\/a>. Gutierrez had a multi-million dollar contract with Vigil-Giron\u2019s office to produce TV ads paid for with HAVA funds, and Gutierrez\u2019s attorney says that\u2019s what Kupfer helped him with.<\/p>\n

Kupfer was paid $750,000 by Gutierrez during that time. Prosecutors allege that was part of the illegal scheme, while Gutierrez\u2019s attorney says it was payment for valid work.<\/p>\n

At the same time Kupfer was receiving those payments from Gutierrez, he was being paid tens of thousands of dollars by Vigil-Giron for separate but related consulting work.<\/p>\n

Vigil-Giron, Gutierrez, Kupfer and Kupfer\u2019s wife Elizabeth<\/a> 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<\/a> between 2004 and 2006 through the secretary of state\u2019s contract with Gutierrez by falsifying invoices.<\/p>\n

The grand jury indictments<\/a> in the case don\u2019t connect all the dots about how the defendants knew each other, so documents that show Kupfer\u2019s relationship with Vigil-Giron\u2019s office are significant.<\/p>\n

Vigil-Giron was directly involved in Kupfer\u2019s contract<\/h3>\n

Vigil-Giron\u2019s office paid Kupfer just over $66,000 between 2004 and 2006, according to invoices and payment vouchers<\/a> obtained through the records request.<\/p>\n

The documents reveal that Vigil-Giron was directly involved in Kupfer\u2019s contract with her office. She personally signed contracts with Kupfer in 2003<\/a>, 2004<\/a> and 2005<\/a>. And Vigil-Giron signed off on two invoices Kupfer submitted to her office.<\/p>\n

On one of them the former secretary of state wrote that the invoice should be paid with \u201cHAVA funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most noteworthy documents obtained through the records request were two invoices Kupfer submitted, one for $5,000 and another for $10,000. Though the invoices aren\u2019t dated, vouchers that processed those payments are dated Aug. 17, 2004.<\/p>\n

There was no contract between Kupfer and Vigil-Giron\u2019s office in effect at that time, according to the records provided by the Secretary of State\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Vigil-Giron\u2019s attorney, Robert Gorence, said he had no comment. Attorneys for Kupfer and Gutierrez have not returned calls seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Whether Kupfer did work for the Secretary of State\u2019s Office before 2003 isn\u2019t clear. Current Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo wrote in a response to the records request that the office doesn\u2019t maintain records for more than three years after the end of the fiscal year in which they were created.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this article incorrectly spelled Joseph Kupfer’s last name as Kuper in one paragraph.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Kupfer, one of four people indicted in the case involving former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, was working during the time of the alleged crimes as a consultant in Vigil-Giron\u2019s office, documents show.<\/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":[114,107,155],"class_list":["post-5740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse","tag-secretary-of-state-scandal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740","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=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}