Trucking business worker testifies of accounting issues

Hearing for ex-state official facing possible trial

Jonathan Dominguez, who works for his parents’ trucking business near Bernalillo, never had any reason to mistrust the company’s certified public accountant, Demesia Padilla, until one day in early 2013 when his paycheck bounced.

That led to questions, Dominguez said during testimony Tuesday, the second day of a preliminary hearing in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court to determine whether Padilla will stand trial in state District Court on corruption charges. At the time of the bounced check, she was serving as secretary of the state Tax and Revenue Department.

Dominguez said he called Padilla when he found out his check had bounced. “She was supposed to be paying all the bills,” he said.

During the call, he said, she mentioned an online payment to a Chase credit card that was charged to the account of the Dominguez family’s business, Harold’s Grading & Trucking. He said Padilla acted as if she didn’t know what that charge was about.

But soon after the call, as Dominguez and his wife, Antoinette Dominguez, dug deeper, they learned that the credit card belonged to Padilla, according to testimony. And there were many more charges to her credit card from the trucking company account — a total of more than $25,000.

During questioning Tuesday of Dominguez and other family members involved in the business, Padilla’s lawyer, Paul Kennedy of Albuquerque, implied the money his client took from the trucking company was money that was owed for Padilla’s accounting services.

The business for years had paid Padilla $1,500 a month. During the economic downturn in 2010, Padilla agreed to take $1,200 a month instead, family members testified. During the recession, the business was unable to pay Padilla for three months. But Dominguez, his wife and his mother testified that they never authorized Padilla to start taking money from the account.

Both Jonathan Dominguez and his mother, Patricia Dominguez, said that before Padilla started making online payments to herself from their account, the business would pay Padilla by check. Padilla would prepare the checks herself, and Patricia Dominguez would sign them.

But under questioning from Kennedy, both admitted there were no records of checks during the time Padilla was making those online charges from the company’s account.

Jonathan Dominguez described a confrontation with Padilla on Feb. 2, 2013, at the trucking company’s office. He said Padilla used the office computer to look at the questioned charges. “Oh that’s money that was owed to me,” she said, according to Jonathan Dominguez.

He admitted he lost his temper and that he yelled and cursed at Padilla — who Dominguez said was once like an older sister to him.

But nobody in the family called police or reported an insurance claim for the money. “I couldn’t do it,” Patricia Dominguez said when asked about calling law enforcement. “She was my friend.”

Authorities wouldn’t learn about any problems with Padilla and the trucking company until the State Auditor’s Office began investigating tips that Padilla, the state’s top taxation official, had tried to interfere with a state audit of the trucking company in 2015.

Padilla faces three felony counts and five misdemeanors, all of which revolve around her work for the company from 2011 to early 2013. Felony charges against Padilla include embezzlement, engaging in an official act for personal gain and computer access with intent to defraud or embezzle.

The misdemeanor charges involve alleged violations of state ethics laws, including failing to disclose a potential conflict of interest between her duties as tax secretary and her private accounting business. The preliminary hearing is scheduled to last for more than a week.