Former officer, deputy DA face off
Former New Mexico State Police Officer Samuel “Sam” B. Sena and Deputy District Attorney John Rysanek are running for the Santa Fe County Magistrate Division 3 seat being vacated by Magistrate Donna Bevacqua-Young.
Sena said his 15 years as a state police officer gave him the training and experience he needs to understand the cases that come through the magistrate court and the community members who would appear before him.
“As a senior patrolman I dealt and interacted with the public my entire career,” he said. “It has enabled me to understand people and who they are. I’ve seen people at their best and I’ve seen people at their worst. I’ve seen people when they are in need and people who need to be held accountable for their actions.”
Sena retired from the state police in 2016 amid an investigation into allegations that he falsified shooting scores he was supposed to have been tracking during officers’ firearm qualification drills.
His police certification was subsequently suspended after the state Law Enforcement Academy Board found him guilty of “dishonesty” and displaying “a lack of good moral character,” according to a report published in the Albuquerque Journal.
Sena said in a written statement that he accidentally erased the shooting scores and when he was unable to recover it he “provided information based on [his] recollection of the scores.”
When asked by The New Mexican earlier this month why he didn’t simply tell his supervisors he’d lost the data, Sena said, “It was a decision. It was a poor choice that I made and … I was held accountable for my actions.”
Asked why voters should trust him now, he replied the experience has made him more understanding of people who make mistakes.
Rysanek said he’s seeking the magistrate position in part because he is a “public service addict.” He said he wants to continue doing the same type of work he currently performs — much of which consists of evaluating and preparing cases ahead of presentation to a grand jury — “in a more substantial role.”
As a magistrate, Rysanek said he’d have no control over sentencing but he could have more influence over the types of plea deals he would accept and said he would urge lawyers to come up with more “intricate” plea deals with more frequent court check-ins aimed at reducing recidivism.
Rysanek said his thousands of hours of study during law school and experience in handling cases in the First Judicial District make him a better candidate than his opponent.
If elected, he said, he’d work to find inefficiencies in the court that would free up time to check in more often with defendants on probation and would try to leverage existing resources through the federal Department of Veterans Affairs to start a “veterans court” that would address criminal justice issues unique to veterans.