Race to the wire

In early 2007, the Journal ran a front page story on public corruption in the leadership of the APS and their police department, link. The felony criminal misconduct that they wrote about happened in late 2006. The exact dates and details are still being suppressed.

The significance is; the statutes of limitation will expire in the next few months.

Jennifer Vega Brown is the Legal Adviser and Public Information Officer for Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston. During our meeting; her legal advice was; statutes of limitation on the felonies in question will expire before the crimes can be prosecuted. I have controverting advice that, as long as an arrest is made and charges filed before the deadline, the statutes of limitation are met.

At the same time, an effort is being made to delay the implementation of the MOU, and its obligation to surrender the testimony and evidence of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators.

Houston's MOU requires them to agree that they will not investigate their own felony criminal misconduct, and they will not hold the evidence of their felony criminal misconduct.

The instant the MOU is signed, the leadership of the APS will have yet another obligation to surrender the evidence they're suppressing.

The Board is pushing back on Houston's deadline.

Houston said; it's not negotiable.

At 3:13 into the meeting, link, School Board Member David Robbins actually defended their position; they should be allowed to to investigate their own felony criminal misconduct, and then hold onto the evidence (until statutes of limitation expire).

Robbins also suggested that APS insure itself in order to absorb the liability. He says APS can pay for their self-insurance. Instead of what? He says the costs of self-insurance will be borne by the District not by the County. That means the district has to come up with whatever amount of money is required for the losses when APS police department and the board are sued. Operational money will be put into escrow instead of into classrooms.

Remarkably, none of this is "newsworthy".



photo Mark Bralley