Three former Española Police officers whose terminations for alleged involvement in a city embezzlement scandal were upheld in recent weeks plan to appeal the ruling in state District Court.
Española lawyer Rudy Martin, who represented all three men, said former officers Vince Crespin, Marvin Armijo and Gabe Gonzales will be appealing the decisions of Hearing Officer Maureen Reed in higher court because he does not feel they received proper due process when appealing their terminations from the city.
Reed handed down her decisions on Armijo and Gonzales Nov. 6 and on Crespin Oct. 23.
Armijo and Gabe Gonzales, whose appeal hearings ended Oct. 23, claimed they thought the extra payments of $1,664 and $3,800, respectively, they received were either retroactive pay owed to them from raises or earned for working overtime. Both men testified they didn’t know they had received city money until they were fired for doing so.
For both Armijo and Gabe Gonzales’ decisions, Reed said if the pair didn’t know they’d received unauthorized funds, they should have.
“Armijo knew or should have known that he had only earned $102 for overtime for the pay period at issue,” the decision in his case said. “Overtime pay is separately itemized on the City’s Payroll Detail Register.”
Another reason given in both decisions said the officers should have known the amount of retropay that would be owed to them, and that such payments are never made out of miscellaneous accounts. Armijo’s payment was made out of a miscellaneous account from the Española Jail budget. Gabe Gonzales’ extra funds were out of a miscellaneous Public Safety account.
Crespin, Armijo and Gonzales were fired in July for their alleged roles in an embezzlement scheme in which more than $100,000 in city funds were stolen. The city alleges that all three officers received some of this money as extra payroll. All three officers appealed their terminations, which Reed upheld.
Crespin’s case came before Reed over the course of two days: Sept. 25 and Oct. 9. The city, represented by Acting City Attorney Paula Maynes, argued that an unexplained $1,690 direct deposit into Crespin’s account was an unauthorized second paycheck out of city funds. Martin and Crespin argued that Crespin believed the money was a personal loan of Lujan’s entire paycheck and that he didn’t know the money came out of a miscellaneous city fund until he found out from testimony at the hearing. The real reason Crespin was fired, Martin claimed, was the officer’s strained relationship with Public Safety Chief Julian Gonzales.
Maynes said the city was relieved, but Martin said he will be taking all three cases to District Court.
“We’ll be filing an appeal to District Court,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get someone who understands how the law is applied to hear this case.”
The language of Reed’s decision indicates that she did not have a proper understanding of how to adjudicate such a case, he said. He also said Reed behaved in an unethical manner because she never disclosed that she and Maynes were law school classmates and co-workers at the Attorney General’s office. According to the city’s process for appealing a termination, both sides in a case have to approve any specific hearing officer. Martin agreed on Reed, but he said he probably would not have if he had known before that Reed and Maynes were acquainted.
“I think Miss Maureen Reed was just grossly, blatantly in support of Miss Maynes,” he said. “This was nothing more than a kangaroo court for the city to grab headlines.”
It was Martin’s decision, and not the city’s, to open the appeal hearings to the public.
Both Maynes and Reed flatly denied that their prior acquaintance influenced the case. The acquaintance was at least a decade ago, Maynes said, and the two worked in different departments within the attorney general’s office.
“To say that (Reed) is favoring the city because of (the acquaintance) is just ridiculous,” Maynes said.
Reed, who has served as a hearing officer in city matters twice before, said she made her decision in good faith based on the evidence presented.
Also, Martin said he felt Reed dismissed his objections in the case out of hand, while supporting those made by Maynes. Martin also said he felt it was unfair to penalize his clients because former Finance director Josie Lujan did not appear as a witness in any of their cases.
In all three decisions, Reed listed the lack of Lujan’s corroborative testimony as a reason for upholding the officers’ terminations.
Lujan, along with the officers and former payroll specialist Trudy Gallegos, is the target of a joint State Auditor and State Police investigation into the embezzlement scandal. Neither Lujan nor Gallegos opted to appeal their termination. To date, no charges have been filed as part of the scandal investigation and no arrests have been made.
Martin had not appealed his clients’ case to District Court as of Tuesday. The city had not received any indication that the officers plan to appeal by deadline, city legal assistant Armando Rodriguez said.