After conviction, AG targets Griego’s retirement benefits
Retirement, other benefits can be revoked for officials’ corruption-related crimes
ALBUQUERQUE — Prosecutors working for New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas will seek to take away retirement and other benefits from former state Sen. Phil Griego, who was convicted last month on corruption charges.
At a court hearing for a separate criminal case against the former lawmaker, state District Judge Brett Loveless told prosecutors that he signed an order instructing the state Public Employee Retirement Association and the Legislative Council Service to turn over documents related to Griego’s retirement benefits and any other benefit or payment to him between Sept. 1, 2013, and June 26, 2014.
Those dates represent the period during which Griego, a Democrat from San Jose, was helping to steer through government channels a sale of state property to an adjacent downtown Santa Fe hotel, for which the hotel owners paid Griego a $50,000 broker’s fee.
New Mexico law allows the state to seek a fine in the amount of a public official’s salary and benefits for corruption-related crimes.
A Santa Fe jury last month found the ex-lawmaker guilty of bribery, fraud, having an unlawful interest in a public contract and two counts of ethical violations because of his dual role as senator and broker for the deal. The verdict came after a three-week trial that brought some of the state’s most powerful politicians to the witness stand.
The attorney general was heavily criticized for not seeking such an “aggravated fine” against former Secretary of State Dianna Duran, a Republican elected official who in 2015 pleaded guilty to several corruption-related felonies.
One difference in the two cases is that Duran entered into a plea bargain while Griego went to trial.
Griego’s sentencing for the land-sale case is scheduled for Feb. 16. The 69-year-old could face more than a dozen years in prison.
The second case against Griego, which has to do with alleged campaign finance violations, is scheduled for trial on Sept. 24.
In that case, Griego faces 13 felony perjury counts; five felony counts of embezzlement; a felony fraud count; two misdemeanor counts of filing false campaign reports; and a misdemeanor count of illegally paying a Santa Fe auto repair shop with campaign funds several months after he resigned from the Senate in March 2015.
The charges center around campaign finance reports that Griego filed between 2012 and 2016.
Mark Pinto, an investigator for the state Attorney General’s Office, said in several affidavits last year that a comparison between Griego’s campaign bank account and finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s Office showed probable cause for criminal charges.
In an affidavit released last year, Pinto said Griego since 2012 had written more than 40 checks from his campaign fund that never were reported to the secretary of state as required by law.
If convicted on all counts, Griego could face an additional 15 years in prison on top of whatever sentence he receives in February.
Griego did not appear at Wednesday’s brief hearing. His lawyer, Tom Clark of Santa Fe, participated by telephone.
Contact Steve Terrell at 505-9863037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at www.santafenewmexican.com/roundhouse_roundup.