Pearce campaign attacks terminally ill man
Attorney appeared in spot defending Lujan Grisham
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Pearce’s campaign has released a controversial ad attacking Democratic opponent Michelle Lujan Grisham for her ties to a Santa Fe lawyer who is dying from from pancreatic cancer and is in hospice care.
The new Pearce ad, a 15-second television spot titled “Beyond Doubt,” points out Diego Zamora once represented former state Sen. Phil Griego, who was convicted in two criminal cases this year and last year on numerous corruption charges. It also refers to Zamora’s 20-month disbarment in 2001 for stealing money from clients. “If he’s defending Grisham, she’s corrupt beyond doubt,” the Republican candidate’s ad says.
Zamora recently appeared in an ad that Lujan Grisham’s campaign produced in response to an earlier attack by Pearce. In the TV spot, Zamora defended Lujan Grisham’s role in Delta Consulting Group, a firm she co-founded that helps manage the state’s high-risk medical insurance pool — which critics say is unnecessary since the federal Affordable Care Act went into effect.
Lujan Grisham began airing the Zamora ad, which was shot in June, soon after Pearce’s earlier spot accusing her of corruption, saying she used her connections with former Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration to win the state contract for Delta.
Zamora, who has been ill for two years, declined to comment Tuesday. However, his brother, Geno Zamora, also a lawyer in Santa Fe, said he was “disappointed in the lack of humanity” in the new Pearce ad.
“I was just with my 85-pound brother who had to use a walker as he struggled to get to his porch so we could sit down and talk,” Geno Zamora said. “In all my years, my 24 years involved in politics, I’ve never seen a dying man attacked in a campaign ad. And I hope I never see it again.”
Geno Zamora, who worked in the Richardson administration, said his brother is a registered Republican.
Pearce campaign spokesman Kevin Sheridan defended the TV attacks. In a statement, he said, “Delta Consulting and corruption in New Mexico are serious issues. Steve Pearce will not allow it ignored or waved away.
“… Weeks before the issue of her contracts was ever raised, Michelle Lujan Grisham chose to produce a rebuttal video to any discussion on Delta Consulting using a tragically sick man to make her case. Her ad does not explain how or what Michelle Lujan Grisham did to intervene on his behalf nor does it disclose his connections to team Richardson and her cronies.”
Lujan Grisham’s opponents for the Democratic nomination, Jeff Apodaca and Joe Cervantes, shortly before the June primary election raised the Delta issue following a story in Politico.
Diego Zamora, who specializes in wrongful death, employment and civil rights law, was Griego’s attorney in 2015, when he resigned from the Senate in the face of an ethics investigation.
“Diego negotiated Griego’s resignation,” Geno Zamora said.
However, soon after a grand jury indicted Griego on criminal charges, the former lawmaker hired experienced criminal trial lawyer Tom Clark to represent him.
On April 12, 2001, the state Supreme Court decided to disbar Diego Zamora for 20 months and placed him on four years’ probation.
The high court also said Diego Zamora — who in the late 1990s became addicted to crack cocaine — had voluntarily stopped practicing law for a while and was admitted to an inpatient treatment program immediately after the Lawyers’ Assistance Committee of the State Bar of New Mexico confronted him about his drug problem in April 1999.
Two months later, while still in the recovery program, he reported to the state bar that he had stolen money from clients and had hired an auditor to determine how much he had pocketed. That figure turned out to be more than $37,000.
The Supreme Court opinion says Diego Zamora obtained a bank loan to repay that money. It added that he fully cooperated with disciplinary authorities and demonstrated genuine remorse for his conduct.