MLK Commission charges assailed
Critics say indictment announcement detracts from holiday
The timing of indictments against three people for financial improprieties at the Martin Luther King Jr. State Commission — on the eve of weekend events to honor the slain civil rights leader — was criticized by several members of the clergy and concerned members of the African-American community during a rally Monday.
Outside the offices of the MLK State Commission at Expo New Mexico, Rev. N. Darnell Smith of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, told the rally crowd that the indictments could have been announced long before the kickoff events for the MLK holiday or they could have been announced after the events were concluded.
Noting that the opening session of the Legislature takes
place today, Smith said he believes the timing was done purposely to benefit legislators who may want to use the MLK Commission as a “political football” to starve funding of the organization.
“We can not allow that to happen because the MLK Commission is vital to our community,” he said.
The commission organizes the annual MLK march/parade and the commemoration ceremony at the conclusion of the parade. It also funds programs that teach people, particularly young people, about the work of the late civil rights leader.
Attorney General Hector Balderas on Monday denied that the timing of the announcement of the indictments was part of any sort of political agenda.
“I’ve brought criminal charges against three defendants who are alleged to have harmed the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission and I am deeply committed to protecting the Commission’s valuable work for students, the African-American community, and all New Mexicans,” he said in an email to the Journal. “The timing of this indictment was governed by grand jury procedures and it would be inappropriate to delay or interfere with a grand jury setting.”
Smith said he did not have any specific information that the state Legislature planned to cut funding to the MLK State Commission.
Still, he warned the new executive director of the commission, Leonard Waites, to “speak up and speak out because, if you don’t, you’re going to show up one Monday morning and you won’t have a job, and there won’t be anybody yelling for you or speaking for you because you waited until it was too late.”
The indictments came nearly two years after investigators with the state Attorney General’s Office raided the offices of the commission and confiscated computers, computer hardware, cell phones, and hand-written and printed financial documents.
Those indicted included the commission’s former executive director, Kimberly Greene, its chief financial auditor Cheryl Yazzie and Charles Countee, who runs a nonprofit that provided education and technology programs for the commission and which held and disbursed funds on behalf of the commission. Charges included embezzlement, fraud, larceny, conspiracy and racketeering.