Ethics panel urges 2nd look at case

The brand-new State Ethics Commission is asking the New Mexico Court of Appeals to reverse a District Court’s dismissal of charges against former tax secretary Demesia Padilla in a 2-year-old public corruption case.

Attorney General Hector Balderas charged Padilla in 2018 with fraud and embezzling more than $25,000 from a private client. She pleaded not guilty.

In March 2019, after her attorney argued some of the charges were based on overly broad statutes, a state district judge in Santa Fe threw out five misdemeanor counts. Padilla still faces three felonies, including embezzlement and using public office for private gain.

The Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal of the dismissals, which is pending, causing a delay in Padilla’s District Court trial.

In its first legal filing, the ethics commission argues the dismissed counts should be reinstated under a state ethics law that lays out clear rules on what counts as abuse of public office.

The filing says Padilla had “fair warning that her alleged ... conduct was both prohibited and subject to criminal enforcement,” and says the court should reverse its dismissal of the charges against former Gov. Susana Martinez’s Cabinet secretary “as a matter of constitutional due process.”

The ethics commission also has asked the court to file a brief in the attorney general’s appeal.

Padilla’s case was further complicated after District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer decided in June that two of the three felony charges against her — embezzlement and use of a computer to defraud or embezzle — did not occur in Santa Fe County. The judge dismissed those charges, but in August, a Sandoval County grand jury indicted Padilla on the same felony counts. Each carries a penalty of up to nine years in prison. She faces one final felony count in Sommer’s court: engaging in an official act for personal financial gain, a fourth-degree felony punishable by a maximum sentence of 18 months.