Sunday, October 26, 2008

OMG! What weaselry! !!

I have been trying for some time to find and expose the truth about the public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS (police department), which came to light in late 2006/early 2007.

I asked Rigo Chavez, APS Director of Communications, and Custodian of Public Records, for information on the various investigations into aspects of the scandal. In particular I am after the results of a private investigation, since it is the only investigation that was not conducted by the people who were being investigated.

Part of my request of the Custodian of Public Records read;

This constitutes a request for public records surrounding the investigations of the Albuquerque Public Schools Police Department in and around January 2007. It includes a request for all public records of any investigations or audits that were made necessary in following through on a complete investigation of APS institutionally and individually.

With Gil Lovato's notice that he is dropping his suit against the APS, it should no longer be necessary for the APS to keep that report secret from public knowledge.

In particular, I am requesting the opportunity inspect the report from the private investigator of the scandal.

In particular, I am requesting any public records of public records that were surrendered to Bernalillo District Attorney Kari Brandenburg, or any other agency of law enforcement as a result of the investigations.


Rigo Chavez still will not reveal the identity of the private investigation firm that was hired, and paid with public funds, to investigate the activities of public servants within their public service.

His latest response to my request for the investigator's identity reads;
With regard to your question about the use of a private investigator in the inquiry into the actions of former APS Police Chief Gil Lovato, you had asked who was in charge of the investigations. While a private investigator may have been used, the private investigator was not in charge of the investigation. (emphasis added)
Still he will not reveal the identity of the private investigation firm hired to investigate the scandal, because I cannot find the exact words that he cannot weasel out of.

APS Superintendent Beth Everitt promised stakeholders that the results of this particular investigation and others, would be surrendered to the District Attorney for possible criminal prosecutions. Chavez admits that to date, almost two years later, and just weeks from the expiration of statutes of limitations for criminal misconduct, APS has not sent to the DA's Office, any of the results of any of the investigations into the scandal.

What crap, what unvarnished, unmitigated crap.

The leadership of the APS is apparently prepared to go to any length to hide the truth about the corruption and criminal misconduct in its leadership. The are prepared to hide the investigators, and they are prepared to hide the results of their investigations.

You have no (defensible) right to know the truth about your interests in the public schools.

The public servants who run the APS refuse to tell you the truth about the corruption and about what they did to the corrupt.

There is only one reason to hide the truth.

The stature of the leadership of the APS will be reduced.
They are prepared to be dishonest with stakeholders in order to escape the consequences of stakeholders knowing the truth.

There is no where in the entire APS where a complaint can be filed over this outrageous conduct.

There is only one place to file a complaint, and that is to follow APS Modrall into the briar patch of a court system where their use of loopholes, technicalities, and legal weaselry will enable them to hide the truth from stakeholders forever.

If Chavez and the good ol' boys can keep this secret for just a few more months, statutes of limitation will expire, and APS good ol' boys will escape the consequences of criminal misconduct.

You, the taxpayer, are paying Rigo Chavez almost $100K a year, he cc's his responses to Winston Brooks, APS Superintendent, whom you pay over $250K a year, and to Brad Winter, APS' Chief Operating Officer, whom you pay over $100K a year, and to Andrea Trybus, APS' Director of Human Resources, whom you pay around $100K a year, and to Bill Reed, the Director of APS' Police Dept, (salary unknown to me), and to Art Melendrez, Modrall lawyer, who along with the Modrall law firm, earns God knows what for their participation in the concerted effort to hide the truth from stakeholders.

You are paying salaries and fees totaling almost $750K a year, to be deceived.
You are paying these people almost $750K a year to cover each others' asses.


If any of this were above the board, Winston Brooks, or some one, would sit in front of stakeholders and respond to legitimate questions about the scandal; candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

The truth is that he won't even sit with stakeholders to lie to them.

Winston Brooks will not answer any questions at all.

None of them will.

And they are weeks away from escaping forever, the legitimate consequences of their conduct in the public corruption and criminal conspiracy scandal in the leadership of the APS (police department).

cc. superintendent (at) aps.edu

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

how about just requesting all invoices paid to lawyers and investigatory companies? You could at least find out which companies they paid money to, then whittle down from there.

ched macquigg said...

I refuse to play their game.

They are not going to turn over invoices any more than they are going to tell the truth about the investigations of public corruption and criminal conspiracy.

Anonymous said...

I would hope the unavoidable by marriage ex parte communication between those deciding who gets contracts and those who will get the contracts should be enough to pique the interest of someone at the DA's office. A billion dollars a year APS makes from student numbers and other income, so any significant contractual chunk of that money awarded without a fair use of the procurement code would be a felony case, but who am I? Ex parte communications and not following procurement codes sounds like at the very least a good start, though.

Have you tried going to Internal Audit and not just laying out your case but asking for protection from those you are whistleblowing against? If nothing else, their response might be hilarious in a sickening way. You build thier case for incompetence every time they turn you away, doesn't that suck, at the same time damning them with possessing information they SHOULD have acted on. A half dozen of one, six of the other.

Did you see the people taking pleas in the Court construction kick back Fraud? Oh man I wonder what whistleblowers Aragon, et. al. burned as they were trying to maintain their supposedly clean images?

Moon and Smith burned me. McNamera and that suspenders wearing dude burned you. To protect their systems, to keep unaccountability and sloppy discipline PRIORITES so no one would see the big lies they were hired to protect, just the "small" problems of those never dealt with but recuring discipline issues. That kind of thing made you think they just needed a refresher course in how not to be dumb asses, is all. That is a defense attorney's wet dream, the incompetence plea. "I'm not a criminal, I am just incompentent" I heard some guy say when he didn't have to go to prison.

Or am I just being paranoid? Do I just need to grow up and realize that life sucks and is not fair? Graft and corruption happens, laws like this have existed since the code of Hamurabi. What makes anyone think that greedy people will stop stealing ever? Even with the best laws and rules, the criminals always find a way to break them when money and power is involved, it seems.

Cops and whistleblowers will ever try to stop the crooks and highwaymen from stealing from the potential of the social contract, and the crooks and highwaymen will ever try to kill the badges and do-gooders before they start a reightous trend of witch and gypsy hangings, right?

America is for the fallen angels and the risen demons both. Maybe we are on the losing side right now, but the wind will shift, the tide will come in, and our shift in Hell will end. The pendulum swings, turn turn turn. For every thing there is a purpose under Heaven. Even the Good Old Boys serve Him in some twisted way.

They are innocent until proven guilty in an American court of law. And even if the DA uses the ex parte communication and procuremnt violation as a way to find even darker secrets once they just LOOK at the financials of all these players, people leave with no repurcussion from seemingly airtight cases all the time.

I guess no cops read your blog, there really seems to be enough to at least ask you some questions and write a report or memo for the record about the allegations.