Ex-mayor of Española accused of sex assault against boy

Suit alleges Richard Lucero assaulted young boy

A lawsuit accuses Richard Lucero, the former longtime mayor of Española, of sexually abusing a boy he employed at his business and mentored in a Boy Scout-affiliated program in the 1980s.

Edward Lucero of Albuquerque, who grew up in Española and is now in his 40s, claims in a suit filed earlier this month in 2nd Judicial District Court that he was 12 years old when Lucero began sexually assaulting him.

Edward Lucero says in his complaint that he has no familial relation to Richard Lucero.

The former mayor, now 84, declined to comment about the lawsuit when reached by phone Friday at his Española feed store, Country Farm Supply.

“You can talk to my attorney,” he said. Asked for the name of his attorney, he said, “I’ll let you know a little bit later. Sorry.”

Richard Lucero served multiple terms as mayor of Española, from 1968-74, 1986-94 and 1998 to 2006.

The suit, first reported by the Rio Grande Sun, alleges Richard Lucero groomed the boy from the age of 11, hiring him to work in his store and inviting the boy to join the Explorers youth group that Lucero led. The mayor had also hired the boy’s mother to work as Española city clerk.

According to the complaint, Lucero asked the boy to begin staying at his home on Friday nights in order to get up early to work at the store and would come into the boy’s bedroom, asking to massage his feet and talking about masturbation, and would sometimes enter the shower when the boy was in there.

The lawsuit says the boy repeatedly refused Lucero’s sexual advances but was threatened by the mayor that the boy’s mother could lose her job if he didn’t comply.

When Edward was 12, Lucero would masturbate near him and initiate “direct sexual contact” over the boy’s objection at Lucero’s home and other locations, the lawsuit says.

As the alleged sexual contact escalated through age 14, the older Lucero began giving gifts to the boy and taking him on trips, including a Texas trip during which, the plaintiff says, Lucero gave him tequila and he awoke to find Lucero performing a sexual act on him. Edward said he pushed and kicked Lucero away.

“Given Mr. Lucero’s status and authority, Edward did not think he could tell anyone about what Mr. Lucero was doing to him,” the lawsuit states. It adds that Edward “felt terrible shame,” his grades in school suffered and he began using alcohol and drugs “to suppress and escape his feelings, and he never told anyone of what had happened.”

It wasn’t until 2016, when Edward Lucero had been jailed on a drug charge in Santa Fe County, that he confided in a jail counselor that he was having nightmares and flashbacks of childhood trauma, according to the lawsuit.

Edward Lucero finally disclosed his sexual abuse by Richard Lucero months later, the lawsuit says.

A 1990 profile in The New Mexican of Richard Lucero — who at the time was fending off a public corruption case in which he was later cleared — described him as a single man living alone in a stately home and passionate about his love for his deceased mother, and charitable work with youth and the elderly.

Described as a “feel-good mayor” who worked to better the city’s reputation through local improvement projects and a hard-working, charismatic “big dreamer,” he was criticized by some at the time for egotism and for ballooning the city budget of the working-class city and proposing ambitious development projects.

The city’s recreation center is named for Richard Lucero.

The 1990 profile noted that he had once been a Boy Scout, worked to rebuild the Boy Scout movement in the Española area in the late 1950s, served as a district Boy Scout executive from 1961-74 and was an advisor for the Explorers club at the time of the story.

Some of Richard Lucero’s supporters in the piece were former members of his Boy Scout troops.

Carlos Vigil, a lawyer and Scout in the late 1950s, was quoted a saying: “Richard always taught us you could become anything and do anything you wanted in this world. His leadership taught others to be leaders.”

The piece went on to say that Lucero devoted a large amount of time to youth activities and reportedly paid his own money to support them.

It also described Lucero as a religious man who, along with his siblings, had a strict upbringing by their parents. Lucero’s younger brother committed suicide in 1965.

“A flamboyant man with a taste for the clothing and hair styles of the times, his passions can be his problems,” the profile said, noting his indictment in 1973 for allegedly billing the city and the New Mexico Municipal League for a trip he took as league president. He was later convicted of verbally abusing a city police officer and charged in a confrontation with a sheriff ’s deputy.

A 1992 story in The New Mexican described a youth conference in Española that Lucero helped organize.

Lucero is quoted as saying he wanted it to bring youth and adults together to solve problems revolving around sex, drugs, religious values and education.