NM Sec. of State asks AG’s Office to investigate state rep’s campaign finance violations

New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran and her office are using the same campaign finance rules she allegedly violated to go after a state legislator for his own failure to properly report campaign contributions.

Duran and her office sent a letter to Attorney General Hector Balderas Thursday asking his office to investigate missing money in campaign finance reports filed by state Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque. His failure to report thousands of dollars of contributions was first uncovered by KOB’s Ryan Luby in early September.

Balderas filed a criminal information Aug. 28 charging Duran with 64 counts of campaign finance violations, alleging she used thousands of dollars of contributions to pay off gambling debts after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at New Mexico casinos. She pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Rep. James Roger Madalena, D-Jemez Pueblo, and Rep. Andy Nunez, R-Hatch, also became the subjects of an official inquiry by the Secretary of State’s Office over their use of campaign funds.

Balderas’s Office responded Wednesday to a motion filed Tuesday by Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s attorney, Erlinda Johnson, that asked a judge to extend deadlines for discovery in the case and to push back a preliminary hearing for Duran.

The response from the AG’s Office Wednesday asks the First Judicial District judge presiding over the case to deny Johnson’s motion. A 10-member bipartisan committee is meeting to investigate charges against Duran and consider whether to recommend impeachment for her.

Friday, she assured state residents that her office can fairly enforce campaign finance laws despite the fraud, embezzlement and other criminal charges pending against her.

KOB FIRST UNCOVERS NEW DISCREPANCIES

KOB analyzed Maestas’s campaign finance records and compared them to records from political action committees and lobbyists spending money in New Mexico. The station found six political action committees and four lobbying groups reporting donations to Maestas in the 2014 election cycle.  Among them are PACs representing New Mexico’s physical therapists, realtors, insurance and financial providers, and community bankers.

Altogether, the 10 organizations collectively reported $5,250 of donations to Maestas’s campaign that did not appear in his records as monetary contributions.

4 Investigates contacted the organizations before airing an initial story.  Nearly all of them confirmed Maestas’s campaign cashed their checks.

On Friday, Sept. 4, the day the initial story ran, one of them — Farmers Group Inc. and its Affiliates — told KOB that it erroneously reported a donation to Maestas in the amount of $1,000.  It amended its reports.

Later that day, Maestas emailed KOB to say he amended his legally-required campaign finance reports to account for the previously unreported donations amounting to $4,250.

KOB offered Maestas numerous opportunities to speak on-camera, but he refused.

DURAN’S OFFICE LOOKS INTO DISCREPENCIES

Duran’s letter to Balderas states Maestas met with Duran’s Chief of Staff, Ken Ortiz, Sept. 8  and filed three amended campaign reports. It alleges that after those were filed, it “appears” Maestas continued to amend the reports.

Read the full Campaign Reporting Act here.

The difference between the 2015 April First Biannual report filed April 13 and the amended reports ended up totaling more than $11,000. Duran surmises in her letter to Balderas that Maestas failed to report that $11,169 according to law, making it a false report.

Her letter also contains numerous additional possible violations from his campaign reports and discrepancies with lobbyist reports, though Duran writes that the lobbyist report contradictions cannot be independently verified without an audit.

The letter to Balderas says that under state law, any report that is amended more than 100 days after its filing could carry a maximum $5,000 fine for the politician. It says that all eight of Maestas’s reports fall into that category, theoretically meaning Maestas could face up to $40,000 in fines.

“When our office is made aware of a possible violation of the campaign reporting act, the issue is referred to our Ethics Bureau to conduct a review of campaign reports filed.  During this review, our Ethics Bureau identified several additional possible violations that need to be thoroughly investigated by the Attorney General, which may necessitate a review of Rep. Maestas’ personal and campaign accounts,” Ortiz wrote in a statement to KOB Friday.

Ortiz told KOB the Secretary of State’s Office has referred 22 candidates’ campaign finance reports to the AG’s Office this year, as well as the reports for nine political action committees.

MAESTAS RESPONDS TO DURAN’S FILING

After receiving notice of Duran’s filing Thursday, he sent a letter to her and her office Friday.

“Going to the Attorney General and the media instead of writing to me, in direct violation of state law, calls into question your motives in this matter,” he wrote.

His letter says he worked “side-by-side, in person” with Ortiz on Sept. 8 to “carefully” amend his report under the office’s guidance. It goes onto say that he emailed the Secretary of State’s ethics staff with updated reports the next day and forwarded that email to the Foundation for Open Government, Common Cause and the Albuquerque Journal.

It says he also included his campaign bank account records “so as to eliminate any appearance of impropriety.”

The letter calls her letter to Balderas “very troubling” and says Maestas had not received any correspondence or communication from the Secretary of State’s Office prior to KOB contacting him.

PREVIOUS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION REPORTING ISSUES WITH MAESTAS

In February, the 4 Investigates team found Maestas was more than two months behind in filing his final campaign report of the 2014 election cycle.

“There’s no excuse and it will never happen again,” Maestas told KOB at the time.

He quickly filed the report after KOB contacted him.

“We weren’t trying to hide anything, I just– my campaign didn’t get it done, I take full responsibility,” Maestas said.

In regards to the inconsistent campaign contributions, Maestas sent a statement to KOB earlier this month:

“I want to thank KOB for bringing this issue to my attention and I take full responsibility for any inaccuracies in my reports.  Upon receiving verification from the bank of the dates these checks were deposited into my campaign account, I amended my reports accordingly.”

AG’S OFFICE DISCUSSES DURAN’S REFERRAL

Balderas’s spokesman, James Hallinan, sent KOB a statement regarding Duran’s referral Friday:

“In 2015, this office has not received a referral from the Office of the Secretary of State alleging that a candidate knowingly and willfully violated any provision of the Campaign Reporting Act under the criminal enforcement provisions of Section 1-19-36 of the Act. The 31 matters Mr. Ortiz has identified are administrative and civil in nature, such as the collection of penalties and fines for late filing of campaign reports. These matters are being handled by an assistant attorney general in the office’s Open Government Division assigned to provide legal advice to the Office of the Secretary of State.

The Office of the Secretary of State’s ?referral to our office regarding Representative Maestas cited Section 1-19-34.6 of the Campaign Reporting Act, which authorizes referrals to the Office of the Attorney General for civil enforcement of the Campaign Reporting Act, not the criminal enforcement provision. Of course, regardless of the specific provision under which the referral was made, the Attorney General will thoroughly investigate and follow up on this matter.”

KOB’s Ryan Luby contributed to this report.