{"id":59564,"date":"2015-06-16T08:59:37","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T14:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=59564"},"modified":"2015-06-16T10:21:09","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T16:21:09","slug":"notaries-werent-knowingly-part-of-a-conspiracy-ellins-believes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/06\/notaries-werent-knowingly-part-of-a-conspiracy-ellins-believes\/","title":{"rendered":"Notaries weren’t knowingly part of a conspiracy, Ellins believes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The three notaries charged in a binational\u00a0scam to cash fraudulently obtained federal tax refund checks weren’t knowingly part of a conspiracy, Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins says he believes.<\/p>\n

\"Lynn<\/a>

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins<\/p><\/div>\n

A former document technician in the office, Maria Ceniceros, is facing felony charges for allegedly coordinating the scam<\/a>.\u00a0Three other former employees — Reena Rodriguez, Nadia Martinez and Emilia S. Gomez —\u00a0are facing charges of conspiracy to commit forgery and violation of notary requirements.<\/p>\n

The four are no longer employed<\/a> by the county.<\/p>\n

Gomez, Martinez and Rodriguez\u00a0allegedly notarized forged signatures for $20 apiece. Ellins says he believes the notaries thought the signatures were valid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that there was a conspiracy between those three and Maria Ceniceros,” he\u00a0told NMPolitics.net.\u00a0\u201cI think they just notarized because\u00a0a friend (Ceniceros) came to them and said, ‘Do me a favor,’ and they did a favor, a stupid favor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellins noted that even if the conspiracy charge against the women doesn’t stick, violation of notary requirements is a\u00a0misdemeanor crime. Chief Deputy Clerk Scott Krahling told NMPolitics.net\u00a0such action is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

“They knew it was against the law,” Krahling said. “If you\u2019re going to break the law while you\u2019re on the clock, you\u2019re going to be held accountable, and you should.”<\/p>\n

This article has been updated to clarify that those facing charges\u00a0are no longer employed<\/a> by the county.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The three notaries charged in a binational scam to cash fraudulently obtained federal tax refund checks weren’t knowingly part of a conspiracy, Do\u00f1a Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins says he believes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[142,115],"class_list":["post-59564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-dona-ana-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59564","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=59564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}