Feds raid state Taxation and Revenue Department as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation.

Whether federal probe is related to state investigation of former Cabinet secretary is unclear

The FBI on Wednesday raided the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department as part of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation.

Elizabeth Martinez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque, said FBI agents executed a federal search warrant, but she declined to give any details of the investigation.

“As a matter of policy, Justice Department agencies, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, do not comment on ongoing investigations,” she said in an email. “Additionally, as a matter of law, federal officials are prohibited from commenting on matters occurring before grand juries.”

Ben Cloutier, a spokesman for the state tax department, provided an additional detail.

“The FBI served a search warrant concerning a classified employee … who has been employed with the department since 2006.” That employee has been placed on administrative leave, Cloutier said.

Unclear is whether the grand jury investigation of the classified employee is related to a state investigation of Demesia Padilla, former taxation and revenue secretary. Padilla, an appointee of Gov. Susana Martinez, suddenly resigned in December after state investigators went to her agency and seized tax documents belonging to her and her husband.

Neither Padilla, who was a certified public accountant in Albuquerque before becoming Gov. Martinez’s tax secretary in 2011, nor her husband has been charged with any crime.

Padilla, who had been one of the governor’s longest-serving Cabinet members, was the subject of an investigation by the state attorney general, Hector Balderas. He was looking into a range of possible crimes, including tax evasion and embezzlement.

James Hallinan, a spokesman for Balderas, declined to comment on the FBI’s raid. But when asked whether his office had handed the Padilla case over to federal investigators, he said, “I can confirm that the investigation related to Demesia Padilla is still ongoing within the Office of the Attorney General.”

Questions about Padilla’s financial relationship with a former client, an Albuquerque trucking company, were first raised by State Auditor Tim Keller in 2015. “Our office’s preliminary investigation into Secretary Padilla raised a number of deeply troubling allegations of actions that put our state revenue and whistleblower employees in jeopardy,” Keller said.