Ex-state Sen. Griego gets 18 months, $47,000 fine
Prosecutors had sought 10-year prison sentence
Astate district judge on Friday sentenced former state Sen. Phil Griego to 18 months in a state penitentiary and fined him $47,000 for his convictions on corruption charges.
Griego’s lawyer, Tom Clark, told reporters after the hearing that his client probably will serve only half of his sentence because, as a nonviolent offender, Griego will get day-for-day credit for good behavior.
Judge Brett Loveless of Albuquerque gave Griego, 69, three weeks to report to the geriatric unit of the state Corrections Department’s prison in Los Lunas.
Though Griego said he accepted responsibility for his crimes — which include bribery and fraud — he also told the judge, “I genuinely believe I am not a criminal.”
A former Santa Fe City Councilor who was the son of a small east-side grocery store owner and politician, Griego said he is aware that he has “stained” his family legacy. He told the judge he realizes he has written the first paragraph of his obituary and that it will refer to him as a “disgraced former legislator” and not talk about the good things he has done.
Griego, a Democrat who now lives in San Jose, said his crimes had no victims. “I spent 35 years in public life and not once has anyone stood up and said ‘I am a victim of a crime and I blame Phil Griego.’ ”
But Loveless, in announcing Griego’s sentence, countered, “The impact of that you’ve done is not only felt by family, not only your constituents, but everyone who lives in our society.” He referred to the jury selection process in Griego’s trial, which was made more difficult because so many potential jurors had such dim views of the honesty of public officials.
“That perception is a danger,” the judge said. “It’s a danger when people don’t have confidence in elected officials. We feel disenfranchised. It leads to people not having trust in their government. … These kind of things have impact, a great deal of impact. And you are part of the problem.”
Prosecutors for the state Attorney General’s Office had asked for a 10-year sentence for Griego. Griego, meanwhile, had asked for no prison time.
Assistant Attorney General Zach Jones told the judge, “The most troubling thing about this case, the most striking thing, is that this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment greedy decision. It was a calculated, well-thought-out plan that played out slowly, over 18 months.”
The case revolved around Griego’s role during the 2014 legislative session in pushing through legislation authorizing the sale of a state-owned building on De Vargas Street to Ira Seret, owner of the adjacent Inn of the Five Graces. Seret paid Griego a $50,000 broker’s fee for his efforts.
Jones said there were plenty of opportunities for Griego to abandon his plan or at least to disclose it to other legislators, which he never did. Instead, Jones said, “He chose to press on, always toward his payday.”
During his trial last year, Griego “was
adamant he did nothing wrong,” Jones said. Jones recalled when Griego from the witness stand snapped at a prosecutor: “You have no idea because you’ve never been a senator, so you don’t understand what the Senate is all about.”
Jones said Friday, “Your honor, the public understands that politicians are not above the law. They must be held accountable.”
But the judge said he thought 10 years seemed “akin to revenge or something I don’t want to be a part of.”
Griego shouldn’t get a free pass because of his age, Jones told the judge. Clark disagreed.
“They’re asking to put my client into what is paramount to a meat grinder,” Clark told the judge. “They’re asking for what’s paramount to a death sentence for his first offense for a whitecollar crime. … Nothing Phil Griego has done would justify the meat grinder that is the Department of Corrections.”
Clark compared the sentence proposed by the attorney general with sentences of other politicians who have been convicted on corruption charges in recent years. One he focused on was that of former Secretary of State Dianna Duran, who he described as “a degenerate gambler” who “stole thousand and thousand and thousands of dollars from her campaign fund … and gambled them away.”
Clark noted that the original plea reached between the attorney general and Duran’s lawyer asked for no jail time — an agreement that was rejected by state District Judge T. Glenn Ellington. Ellington later sentenced Duran to a month in jail.
“Yet here they ask for 10 years,” Clark said, “and I wonder if it wasn’t the political fallout from [the Duran] case that has caused the state to ask for such a punitive penalty. … The fallout was swift and angry and harsh.”
Of Griego, Clark said, “He lost his Senate seat, he lost his real estate license, he lost vast resources in defense of case, and more than anything else, he lost his reputation,” Clark said. “He blames nobody but himself.”
Testifying on Griego’s behalf at the hearing were several family members, including Griego’s wife, Jane; a daughter; a grandson; his sister and his brother-inlaw; as well as a friend, former Santa Fe Municipal Court prosecutor Art Micheal.
Each described Griego as a kind, loving, honest and generous man who has taken care of his family as well as his constituents, arguing that the good things he has done outweigh the crimes for which he was convicted.
Jane Griego told the judge she has been married to Phil Griego since 1967. “I can not imagine after 51 years waking up and not seeing Phil with a cup of coffee in his hands, or watching him read his morning prayers, or putting on his red flannel shirt to go feed the horses,” she said. “I cannot imagine Phil not being here to watch our grandson graduate from college. And all the hurt and worry the children and grandchildren will have about their father and grandfather not being at the ranch.”
Griego resigned from the Senate in 2015 in the face of an ethics investigation as fellow senators were considering expelling Griego from office.