Questions surround firm in APD lapel video investigation
A firm hired by the city of Albuquerque to investigate allegations that officials secretly edited videos of police shootings was previously banned from doing state government audits after problems arose with its audit of a New Mexico hospital.
Eide Bailly, the firm hired to do the investigation, was able to get its disqualification lifted after it conceded there were errors in its audit of Miners’ Colfax Medical Center in Raton and recognized lessons it learned, according to a letter written by Sanjay Bhakta, deputy state auditor.
The public accounting and
advisory firm still faces several restrictions when doing business in the state, such as being allowed to do only one audit per year, state Auditor Tim Keller told the Journal.
“The … restriction does not affect the city’s ability to contract with the firm for this type of investigation,” Bhakta wrote in an email to city officials Wednesday. “However, we thought this information would be of interest.”
The allegations the firm is tasked with investigating led to public meetings and are now part of ongoing civil and criminal cases involving Albuquerque police.
Albuquerque Police Department officials have said the department edits videos to clarify them but does not tamper with or try to hide evidence. They also said the department maintains original versions of all video evidence.
Officials from Eide Bailly, based in Fargo, N.D., could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The firm was awarded the $50,000 contract last month.
City Attorney Jessica Hernandez said in an interview Thursday that the state auditor was the first to alert the city to the problems with Eide Bailly’s prior work in the state. She said she will review some additional information before making a decision on whether Eide Bailly should continue its investigation, which is expected to result in a public report on Feb. 28.
Hernandez said the firm is still one of the approved firms that can do audits in New Mexico, and the work it’s doing for Albuquerque is much different from the health care audit it did previously. It has never before done work for the city, which she said ensured its independence.
“It’s just a question of how much weight to give it,” she said. “One of the questions we’re looking at is whether or not incident.”
Eide Bailly, while completing an audit of the Raton hospital for the 2014 fiscal year, failed to follow state audit rules and billed the hospital more than its contracted fee, according to Bhakta’s letter. The firm then delayed completion of the audit, causing an “unacceptable delay in the submission of Medicaid and Medicare cost reports.”
Keller said his office received several inquiries about Eide Bailly after it was hired to complete the it’s an isolated lapel camera investigation. He said that usually when firms are hired through competitive bidding, the government agency hiring the company asks if the firm is facing restrictions in the state.
The city didn’t go through the bidding process before hiring Eide Bailly, which is allowed under city rules and expedited the investigation, Hernandez said.
“I certainly understand from a citizen’s perspective that this is an extremely important investigation,” Keller said.
The investigation was called for after Reynaldo Chavez, APD’s former records custodian, said in a sworn affidavit that Albuquerque police officials edited parts of videos made during police shootings. Specifically, he said, police deleted part of a lapel-camera video from the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Mary Hawkes and deleted security video that captured the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Jeremy Robertson.
Police have denied Chavez’s allegations.
Officials have said the investigation is significant to the community.
“I think it’s important to consider perception,” said David Harper, the city’s inspector general.
Beth Mohr, chairwoman of the Police Oversight Board, said in an email that the city should have selected a different vendor. She said it should have chosen a firm of private investigators, not forensic accountants. And she also had concerns about Eide Bailly’s prior work for Miners’ hospital.
“I am obviously concerned that Ms. Hernandez has picked a firm which was sanctioned by the state auditor,” she said. “The circumstances surrounding the hire, particularly the lack of (the Civilian Police Oversight Agency’s) and (the Police Oversight Board’s) input, threatens the integrity of the investigative process and thus the public’s ability to trust the result.”
Harper and the civilian oversight groups in Albuquerque provided suggestions to Hernandez before she hired Eide Bailly, but they weren’t involved in the selection process.