Suspects in murder plot deny charges

Gregg Marcantel, the New Mexico Corrections Secretary who allegedly is the target of a prison gang hit, was in federal court Thursday watching as a succession of men accused of involvement in the conspiracy entered not guilty pleas before a federal magistrate judge.

Some in yellow jumpsuits, others in Metropolitan Detention Center orange, were escorted one at a time into the courtroom by deputy marshals from holding cells outside the courtroom. Each time the door opened, the commotion from the waiting prisoners briefly paused proceedings.

None was released, although in at least a couple of cases the detention orders are likely to be appealed to a federal district judge.

Fourteen defendants were arraigned in two companion cases alleging that members of the Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico, or SNM, gang engaged in conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit racketeering — a wide-ranging enterprise that encompassed drug trafficking, murders and assaults among its activities.

The 2016 indictment unsealed in late April alleges that the gang’s “mission to kill” Marcantel last year was to involve a hit man who would himself end up dead after the murder. Details of the plot, and six other old homicides in the state, are included among over 200 separate acts in the decades since the gang formed after the 1980 Penitentiary of New Mexico riot.

Anthony Ray Baca heads the list of the 12 defendants in the new indictment. As head of SNM in 2013, he is the person who began discussing the publicity value of arranging a hit on a high-level corrections official and who allegedly ordered the hits in March 2015, according to the indictment.