An administrator who was influential nine years ago in ousting Española’s new top cop from the Española Police Department said there are no hard feelings between the two.
Public Safety Chief Leo Montoya, who was sworn-in at a Jan. 25 City Council meeting, was forced to resign from the Department, where he was a lieutenant, effective Feb. 25, 2002, according to previous SUN reports. The man responsible for giving him the quit-or-be-fired ultimatum was then-interim chief Richard Guillen, who told Montoya to step down following a poaching conviction in Taos County Magistrate Court Feb. 5, 2002.
Guillen is now a contract administrator with the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department under Sheriff Tommy Rodella, who was himself arrested by Jicarilla Apache Nation Game and Fish officers for a hunting infraction in 1993. Rodella was accused of shooting at a decoy deer before settling his case in 1994 for $2,500, the maximum amount he could have been fined if found guilty.
Montoya sued the city following his departure and reached an out-of-court settlement with the city’s insurance carrier Oct. 2, according to previous SUN reports. A public records request with the city to inspect the settlement documents had not been filled as of Tuesday.
Guillen, who had to be reminded about the details of Montoya’s resignation, said Tuesday he did not think there would be any bad blood between the two Departments stemming from that history.
“Remember,” he said. “I dealt with so many things.”
Guillen said Montoya came into the Sheriff’s Department a few days before he took over the city Department to introduce himself, which Guillen said was a courtesy most new administrators perform.
Guillen said he couldn’t say what he thought of Mayor Alice Lucero’s decision to appoint Montoya to the job because he did not know who the other applicants were. He said he thought Montoya could run the city Department because he was most recently in charge of the Santa Clara Tribal Police Department.
“He’s got the experience,” Guillen said.
But previous SUN reports tell the following story of the falling out between Guillen and Montoya:
Almost nine years ago, Guillen wanted Montoya out of the city Department for a list of complaints relating to the poaching incident and Montoya’s job performance. Montoya turned the accusations back on Guillen when he filed his wrongful termination lawsuit against the city in March 2002.
Montoya went on sick leave from the city beginning Jan. 4, 2002, for a shoulder injury. He was still on sick leave on Jan. 26, 2002, when state Game and Fish Department wardens found Montoya, three other men and a juvenile hauling parts of a dead elk on horseback in an area near Cebolla that was closed to hunting. When the wardens confronted Montoya’s hunting party, the group had only a handgun with them. One of the men in the party told wardens Montoya put four rifles in a trailer he owned on the property of then-Rio Arriba County commissioner Moises Morales. The man led the wardens to these guns.
Montoya was charged with unlawful possession of an elk and killing an elk out of season, to which he pleaded no contest in court. Under his plea agreement, Montoya paid $700 in fines and forfeited a rifle. A warden said Montoya wanted the charges filed in adjacent Taos County to avoid publicity, which is allowed under state law.
At the time, Guillen said he was “disturbed” by a tampering with evidence accusation against Montoya stemming from the alleged rifle-stashing, although Montoya was not convicted of that charge under his agreement. Guillen also said then Montoya should not have been hunting if he was on sick leave for a shoulder injury.
Guillen also accused Montoya of failing to carry out an investigation into missing money and heroin that disappeared from City Hall in December 2000.
In turn, in an affidavit accompanying his lawsuit, Montoya accused Guillen of firing him because he was leading an investigation into alleged time-sheet falsifications by Guillen.
Guillen said Tuesday he did not remember the investigation.
Montoya’s lawsuit was settled Oct. 2. SUN reports from that time quoted anonymous sources familiar with the agreement who said Montoya’s attorney Wilbert Maez proposed a settlement amount of $13,000, a small fraction of the $1.5 million Montoya originally asked for. A new request for the settlement is pending.
Former mayor Richard Lucero said at the time he was “one mad Mexican” because the insurance company’s attorneys settled the lawsuit instead of going to trial and that there was an order for each side not to speak of the settlement.
Montoya’s new salary was still unclear as of Tuesday, as neither City Manager James Lujan or Alice Lucero returned calls for this story. District 2 Councilor Cory Lewis said Lujan told him Montoya will earn $73,000 a year, slightly less than his predecessor, Joe Martinez, who earned $75,000 a year.
By returning to work, Montoya may also be forced into giving up his state Public Employees Retirement Association pension under a new law passed last year aimed at preventing the practice commonly called double-dipping. Montoya earns $1,497.28 a month through his pension, according to Association Deputy Director Mary Frederick. Frederick said Association rules prevented her from saying whether Montoya’s pension had been or would be suspended.
Montoya did not return calls for comment on Monday and said through a secretary Tuesday he would not have time to comment for this story.
Lucero said last week Montoya’s “past issues” seemed “really political.”