Lawsuit ends over stolen Martinez campaign emails

Silence about case hints at possible confidentiality deal

Secrecy surrounds the dismissal of a 2-year-old civil lawsuit that centers on the theft of emails from Gov. Susana Martinez 2010 campaign email accounts by a disgruntled former campaign manager and publicly distributed by others, including Albuquerque attorney Sam Bregman, who later became state Democratic Party chairman.

On Monday, a court filing showed the two sides have agreed to dismiss the civil case with prejudice, which means it can’t be refiled. Attorneys in the case either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment from the Journal.

Such silence around the dismissal of a hard-fought civil case sometimes indicates there is a confidentiality agreement as part of the deal, although no references to such an agreement were made in the court record.

The civil lawsuit was filed in 2014 by Crystal Amaya, Brad Cates, Brian Moore and Kim Ronquillo, all of whom had used the Susana2010 campaign email account

for various reasons — professional and personal. They alleged the defendants conspired to obtain and distribute their emails, both personal and professional, in violation of federal law.

The emails on the Susana2010 campaign account were stolen by former Martinez campaign manager Jamie Estrada after he left the Martinez campaign in its early stages after a fallout.

Estrada was sentenced to nine months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of hijacking the campaign website and one count of lying to FBI agents about it.

The lawsuit was filed shortly after Estrada was sentenced in federal court.

It alleged that Estrada stole the emails and then distributed them with the help of Bregman, political operative Jason Loera, who worked for a Bregman PAC, Anissa Galassini-Ford, who worked for the Martinez campaign, and Michael Corwin and Bruce Wetherbee, who worked for a liberal PAC.

Some of the emails that were made public dealt with the controversial Downs at Albuquerque contract and other political topics. Others also dealt with personal matters such as the governor’s purchase of clothing items.

The defendants all denied the allegations in the lawsuit.

Loera faces sentencing in November for receipt of child pornography. He faces a minimum of five years and a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. His sentencing has been delayed because he had surgery.

Loera admitted to one count of receipt of a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. It was one of six counts he was facing in a second superseding indictment in his case.

FBI agents originally found child pornography on a CD at Loera’s home during the investigation into the stolen emails.

Loera became a key witness for the plaintiffs in the civil case last year, reviving the lawsuit when it was close to being dismissed.

Loera claims he came to know about the emails during a lunch in March or April 2012 with Bregman and former Martinez campaign aide Galassini-Ford, who claimed to have a source who had a cache of the emails.

Loera said Bregman instructed him to get all the emails, which led to additional meetings.

Loera said he finally sat down with Estrada, who downloaded all the emails he had hijacked from the Martinez campaign email account onto Loera’s laptop computer at a Satellite Coffee shop near Rio Rancho.

“Mr. Estrada told me that I should print out the emails and then ‘burn the computer,’ ” Loera said, in the affidavit.

Loera said he told Bregman that he needed help going through the emails and claims Bregman directed him to contact Wetherbee and Corwin of Independent Source PAC, which would later publish information based on some of the emails.

Loera claimed there were discussions with Galassini-Ford, Estrada and Bregman during the course of the summer about what to do with the stolen emails and how to use them to “screw these guys” (Gov. Martinez and her supporters).

Loera claimed he sent all the emails to employees of Independent Source PAC and that he was in contact with Corwin and employees nearly every day.