I’m confused. I know, what else is new?
Attorney General Patricia Madrid called Tuesday for state Treasurer Robert Vigil to resign because of pending federal racketeering charges against him, and she threatened to go to court to remove him from office if he didn’t step down.
Madrid, a Democrat, is the first state public officer to call for Vigil’s resignation.
What’s confusing about that? It seems pretty straight forward, right? Well, it does until you start reading through that 30 page affadavit (hat tip: Joe Monahan):
CW2 has plead guilty to a violation of Title 18 United States Code 1951, commonly referred to as the Hobbs Act. On September 1 CW2 was indicted on securities fraud by the State of New Mexico Attorney General’s Office [p. 5 lines 23-26].
Since that’s the case, what has taken AG Madrid so long to call for a resignation? And I’m not just talking about the 20 days between that previous conviction and her recent “I’m tough on corrupt politiicans” stance. Check out the comments by Rudy Sanchez and Eli Chavez at the bottom of this article. Six years of negligence is an awfully long time for an official whose website states:
As New Mexico’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer, the protection of New Mexicans is a priority of Attorney General Madrid’s administration. The Office of the Attorney General has two divisions that investigate and prosecute criminal activity in our state.
Oops, seems like someone forgot to investigate and prosecute. So, what’s worse than an Attorney General whose failed to do her job?
Vigil took $1,900 in cash and began to instruct CW3 as to where portions of the remaining $3000 of his money should be paid. Specifically Vigil state that he donates to numerous campaigns throughout New Mexico in exchange for their help in his campaign. Vigil instructed CW# that he would call CW3 with the requests for donations and that CW3 would write the appropriate check and send it to Vigil. Vigil advised that he had already promised $1,000 to one campaign. [p. 18 lines 22-27].
That’s right. The implication is there are a whole lot of other publicly elected officials involved in the money laundering and extortion scheme. A search of FollowThe Money.org turns up some interesting beneficiaries from 2004 [why can’t our Secretary of State provide a tool like this?]:
| ANDERS, JOANN B | $50 | ||
| BALDERAS, HECTOR H | $50 | ||
| CAMPOS II, JOSE A | $50 | ||
| CHAVEZ, EDWARD L | $25 | ||
| DIAMOND, JEFFREY B | $50 | ||
| GARCIA, MIGUEL P | $50 | ||
| GRUBESIC, JOHN T L | $50 | ||
| HOOKER, JOHN | $50 | ||
| IRWIN, DONA G | $50 | ||
| LOPEZ, LINDA M | $50 | ||
| LUNDSTROM, PATRICIA (PATTY) A | $50 | ||
| ORTIZ Y PINO, GERALD P | $50 | ||
| PARK, AL | $50 | ||
| PONCE, PAULINE J | $50 | ||
| SANCHEZ, MICHAEL S | $50 | ||
| SWISSTACK, THOMAS E | $50 | ||
| WIRTH, PETER F | $50 |
| BERKHEIMER, CHRIS | $50 | ||
| CAMPOS, PETE | $100 | ||
| CORDOVA, KANDY | $50 | ||
| DUBOIS, STEPHANIE L | $25 | ||
| GARCIA, MARY JANE M | $50 | ||
| GRIEGO, PHIL | $50 | ||
| ROBINSON, SHANNON | $50 | ||
| TAYLOR, JAMES G (SD014) | $50 |
| ARAGON, MANNY M | $100 | |
| BEGAY, RAY | $50 | |
| BHASKER, RAVI | $50 | |
| DUBOIS, STEPHANIE L | $50 | |
| FROST, ROBERT L | $50 | |
| KANDO, JANICE | $50 | |
| LUJAN, ANTONIO | $50 | |
| NUNEZ, ANDREW (ANDY) | $50 | |
| ONEILL, WILLIAM BALDWIN | $50 | |
| RUIZ, HARRIET I | $50 | |
| SANDERS, GASTON O | $50 | |
| SILVA, DANIEL P | $50 |
Wow! What a list? Now, I know $50 is not a lot of money, but I don’t remember hearing any of these folks say “Oh my, I may have taken extortion money.”