Larry Barker Investigates

TUCUMCARI, N.M. (KRQE) – To the casual observer one nicely paved Tucumcari driveway is just a driveway. But to law enforcement officials there’s something fishy about this stretch of pavement, and it’s got the scent of scandal.

Details of what happened here have been kept under wraps for six years. In fact, it’s only in the last couple of months that KRQE News 13 has been able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

This story begins along the central business district of this eastern New Mexico city. In 2006 the New Mexico Department of Transportation spent a year and $16 million repairing, renovating and repaving First Street, Tucumcari’s main thoroughfare. Two construction companies were hired for the job: Albuquerque-based A. S. Horner Incorporated and Daniel Construction and Supply Company of Tucumcari.

NMDOT Civil Engineering Tech Tommy Garcia was the lead inspector on the project. Garcia is accused of not only being on the payroll of private contractors but also diverting leftover asphalt from the state to pave his own driveway.

It was Garcia’s job to oversee and approve contractor work on the Tucumcari highway project. But it wasn’t just downtown that got an expensive new look. At the same time as they were renovating Tucumcari’s public streets for the DOT, contractors quietly built an expensive driveway at the private residence of DOT inspector Garcia.

Daniel Construction paved Garcia’s driveway after hours. A. S. Horner helped out, too, by supplying construction equipment and manpower.

A New Mexico State Police investigator was later told the contractors used truckloads of leftover asphalt from the state project to pave Garcia’s driveway. Garcia says he paid for the $7,000 driveway job with a $2,500 check and some cash, and the rest he claims he worked off in his spare time.

That was in 2006. The driveway deal was kept under wraps for four years until a tip in 2010 launched a State Police investigation.

“We looked into allegations as to whether or not there was criminal activity going on with the result of that driveway, an allegation that an individual that worked as the highway supervisor in charge of inspecting a highway project had a very large asphalt driveway put in at his residence,” said 10th Judicial District Attorney Tim Rose. “There was some indications that the asphalt that was used was intended and actually purchased by the state of New Mexico for the highway project.”

The DOT’s Office of the Inspector General opened its own investigation, but for unknown reasons, the DOT refused to turn its findings over to police. In fact, the DOT hid its report from the authorities for three years.

“(The) State Police officer who was handling the case was trying and made numerous attempts to get access to this investigative report,” Rose said. “Finally I was able to in February write a letter, a pretty strongly worded letter, to the Department of Transportation. I copied that over to the governor’s office demanding to have access to that.”

The DOT’s investigation finally was turned over to the district attorney in April. Among the findings was a bombshell.

According to the inspector general, at the same time Tommy Garcia was inspecting highway projects for the state, he was secretly on the payroll of Daniel Construction, the same contractor whose work he was inspecting. And it was Daniel Construction that paved Garcia’s private driveway.

According to the DOT, Garcia’s failure to disclose his outside employment is a violation of the Governmental Conduct Act.

“It appeared there was some criminal behavior and some criminal actions ongoing.” Rose said. However, due to the lengthy delays, Rose said he was forced to close the case without filing charges. .

“Even if we wanted to pursue charges, it just wasn’t going to happen,” the DA continued. “The case would have been dismissed based on the statute-of-limitations problem.”

In April the governor appointed Tom Church as the cabinet secretary overseeing NMDOT. He was not involved in the handling of this case.

“I don’t believe this is appropriate operating behavior for a state-run department,” Church said. “He (Garcia) worked undisclosed for a subcontractor. He used equipment from the primary contractor to pave his driveway. He made a payment to a contractor that was significantly less than the dollar value of the project.

“The fact that he was inspecting a project, that he then used those contractors for personal use, is unacceptable.”

The DOT disciplined Garcia. A department source, however, called the punishment minimal. Today Garcia is assigned to the Department of Transportation’s District 4 office in Las Vegas.

Garcia told KRQE News 13 he’s done nothing wrong.

“What I do at work has nothing to do with what I do at home,” he said.

However, he admitted being on the payroll of DOT subcontractor Daniel Construction from time to time while working as a state highway inspector.

“Yeah. On and off, just on the side,” he said while adding, “Not officially, no.”

Daniel Construction owner Daniel Mares refused comment and hung up. A. S. Horner project supervisor Johnny Macias conceded the company’s equipment was used in the driveway project.

“I was called by Daniel Construction to borrow one of my pieces of equipment,” Macias said. “I told him yes, he could borrow it.”

Macias, however, said he was neither told, nor did he ask, what the equipment was to be used for.

Asked if he knew equipment would be used to pave the inspector’s driveway, Macias replied, “No. No.”

Was a crime committed in Tucumcari? New Mexico taxpayers may never know.

“I’m not saying whether they are guilty or not guilty,” Rose said. “All I can say is that we had an investigation, and this investigation resulted eventually in enough evidence that I would have approved charges.”

For Church, the bottom line is clear.

“It was absolutely wrong to pave your driveway while you are an inspector on a project,” he said. “This is a trust of the taxpayers we’re talking about.”

Larry Barker Investigates

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – A palatial estate complete with a luxury home and manicured gardens and grounds in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque is an illusion of sorts.

So are other high-end properties scattered around Bernalillo County.

All it takes is some governmental incompetence and bureaucratic indifference sprinkled with a bit of hocus-pocus and these magnificent estates are transformed.

You see, these aren’t just lavish home sites. On paper, the Los Ranchos property is a working farm that’s supposed to include poultry and a horse-breeding facility.

The problem?

“There are no horses or chicken coops on that property,” Bernalillo County Deputy Assessor Damian Lara told KRQE News 13.

By creating the illusion of agricultural use, the homeowner got a big break on his property taxes. The claim of horses and chickens reduces the property’s value by more than $300,000.

An eight-month investigation by KRQE News 13 found the same hocus-pocus all over Bernalillo County.

“You’re kind of taken aback,” said state Taxation and Revenue Secretary Demesia Padilla, who oversees the New Mexico Property Tax Division. “You’re like, ‘How is this happening?'”

“These are luxury homes on very large parcels of property, of acreage, and they don’t appear to have an agricultural purpose.”

What’s going on? It has to do with the tax break extended to New Mexico’s struggling farm industry. If you are a farmer growing corn or alfalfa, your land is taxed at a lower rate than residential property in the city.

KRQE News 13 investigation found palatial estates in Bernalillo County showing up in public records as farm land. By claiming acreage as agricultural under cultivation, owners can save big bucks on their property taxes.

To qualify, the property owner must prove the land is used primarily for agriculture. But in Bernalillo County, the reality is different.

For example, the owner of a three-acre Los Ranchos estate at 5200 Los Poblanos Lane NW gets a $300,000 break because he claims to have a two-acre orchard on his property.

“There are no fruit trees on that property,” Lara said. “It needs to be updated.”

The orchard owner is not some struggling subsistence farmer selling his apples and peaches from a roadside fruit stand. Don Hedges is a North Valley doctor.

When KRQE News 13 called to ask about his agricultural tax break, the good doctor said, “Go to hell.”

When the owner of a Los Ranchos estate at 5101 Rio Grande Blvd. NW applied for an unspecified agricultural use, the assessor’s office decided 18 fruit trees constituted a 1.25-acre orchard which reduced the property values by $170,000.

“That does not appear to be a farm; that appears to be a luxury home,” Padilla said. “There might be a few fruit trees on there, but I really don’t see what I would consider an orchard.”

Lara had a similar reaction to the claim of a 1.25-acre orchard on the property.

“That appears to have been a mistake,” he said. “It appears that this property has been allotted too much acreage under the [agricultural special valuation].”

In 1997, homeowner Paul Duncan asked the assessor to grant an agricultural exemption on his two-acre North Valley estate for a pasture, an orchard and a garden. But the assessor at the time thought his compound at 5549 Eakes Road NW looked too residential and not enough agricultural to qualify for a tax break.

Duncan took his case all the way to the New Mexico Court of Appeals and lost. In what is today considered a landmark opinion, the court said the tax break is intended to aid the small subsistence farmer.

Because Duncan’s property was primarily residential, the court agreed his land did not qualify for an agricultural tax break.

That was in 1999. Shortly after the court ruling, however, Duncan was handed an agricultural exemption anyway. Today the break reduces his property values by $150,000.

Still, the court ruling on who should qualify for an agricultural exemption seems clear to County Attorney Randy Autio.

“Essentially someone who is doing the majority of the use on their property as agricultural,” he said. “You need to be primarily farming.”

Despite the rules, the KRQE News 13 investigation found the assessor’s office routinely ignoring the law by granting farm land to Bernalillo County residential properties that do not qualify. The abuses have been going on for years.

In 2007, Paul and Diana Maloof got a $200,000 break on their property values for an unspecified agricultural use on at their three-acre luxury estate at 4611 Rio Grande Blvd. NW in Los Ranchos.

And the agricultural use requested by the homeowner on the application?

“None is listed,” Lara said. “That is a problem.”

The Maloofs did not return a phone call for comment.

If a vacant 1.5-acre North Valley parcel on Bledsoe NW were just an unimproved lot, the land would be valued at $95,000. However, because there are beehives there, the owner gets an agricultural exemption for honey production. As a result, property taxes on the prime real estate are $12.

The property values on a three-acre estate at 5300 Los Poblanos Lane NW are reduced by more than $400,000 because a dozen years ago a previous owner claimed to be growing alfalfa. Is this a farm or a luxury estate? KRQE News 13 doesn’t know, and neither does the assessor, who said there was no supporting documentation in the file.

“We have clearly individuals who should not be getting that huge tax break,” Padilla said. “The files that you have shown me clearly show abuse.”

Joseph Rivera gets a $156,000 break for his 3.8-acre North Valley estate because of a claimed bird habitat with fruit trees and a pond stocked with bluegill. Rivera hung up when KRQE News 13 asked about his agricultural exemption.

And then who can forget the $7 million estate with the $24 tax bill owned by Texas millionaire Michael Budagher? Not only did Budagher avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes, he also got a $54,000 agricultural exemption he didn’t apply for.

“It’s a little shocking when somebody’s got an exemption and no application in the file,” Padilla said. “That’s not good.”

But that was enough to pull Budagher’s exemption.

“We do not have in our possession an application from Mr. Budagher, and as such pursuant to state law that special-method valuation has been removed from this property,” Lara said.

KRQE News 13 surveyed more than two dozen Bernalillo County properties with agricultural exemptions. None comply with state law.

“It’s a problem,” Padilla said. “There is no doubt that the agricultural exemption has been abused. The residents of Bernalillo County are getting shortchanged.”

The assessor’s office is now reviewing the farm status of the two dozen properties KRQE News 13 identified in this investigation. Agricultural tax breaks that can’t be justified will be removed, and penalties may be imposed for intentional deception.

Larry Barker Investigates

SANTA FE (KRQE) – State employee Martin Hoefler could not have foreseen the unbelievable cold-hearted tragedy that unfolded last November.

Martin was a firefighter with the Energy and Minerals Department. He died last year at the age of 50 leaving behind his wife Lena and eight children.

“It’s just hard without him,” Lena Martin told KRQE News 13 in November. “We all just miss him.”

Martin had a life insurance policy through his state job. But shortly after his untimely death, the insurance company refused to pay Martin’s $33,000 death benefit.

A similar fate befell Bob Allard, a state park technician at Heron Lake. He died in 2010 survived by his wife and two adult children.

Allard paid his life insurance premiums through state payroll deductions. However, after his death, the insurance company said Allard wasn’t covered and refused to pay his widow the $22,000 death benefit.

Larry Barker Investigates: ‘Imaginary’ insurance polices cost families

“When a family is expecting that money to pay for death benefits, and [then they] find out that they are not getting anything, I think that’s obscene,” State Personnel Officer Gene Moser said last year. “Their response was immoral. It’s wrong.”

At the center of the storm is the Standard Insurance Company of Portland, Ore., which provides life insurance policies for state employees.

“What we discovered was employees who had died and their families were thinking they had insurance coverage were finding out they weren’t covered,” Moser added. “This was a big deal. This was a very big deal.”

The impact was most acutely felt by the survivors, as Moser recalled from a conversation with one widow last fall.

“An 80-year-old woman who had been denied claims that her husband had died, she was distraught,” Moser said. “She never thought this was going to be fixed. This was somebody who was living in a trailer by herself in a very rural area. It made a huge difference in her life.”

The state ended up paying the Hoefler and Allard insurance claims and then sent Standard a bill for $55,000.

That was nine months ago. Now KRQE News 13 has learned of at least 10 other state employees who have been victimized.

According to internal state documents, Standard Insurance has denied more than $200,000 in death benefits to the families of a dozen state employees. And even though some of those cases go back four years, all of them – and probably more – have been kept under wraps.

“I was surprised to learn that there were this many claims that should have been paid but had been denied by the Standard,” said Ed Burckle, cabinet secretary for the state’s General Services Department, which manages employee insurance benefits. “There are 12 that have been disclosed today. There are likely to be a few more.

“We just don’t know. Until Standard conducts a 100 percent review of all of its previously denied claims, we don’t know.”

Last November, Standard refused to talk about denied claims on the phone or in person. When KRQE News 13 paid a visit to the firm’s Portland headquarters, corporate security guards were dispatched to protect the financial giant from unwanted scrutiny.

The state and Standard launched independent investigations. In April, following a lengthy negotiation, both parties agreed to resolve disputed life insurance claims. According to a written agreement, all previously denied death claims will be paid.

“When we talked last November, we didn’t even have Standard at the negotiating table,” Burckle told KRQE News 13. “I think it was your story that brought sufficient amount of publicity to the issue that actually created the situation where Standard came to the bargaining table.

“We were able to strike a deal where everyone was going to be covered if they had been paying premiums.”

Standard is not solely to blame for what’s happened. New Mexico also made mistakes. As a part of the settlement, New Mexico taxpayers will pick up the tab for future death claims made by state employees or their dependents up to a total of $300,000 a year. Any claims more than that amount will be paid by Standard.

But why would the state of New Mexico pay death benefits when it’s not an insurance company?

“As part of the settlement with the Standard, neither party admitted any guilt whatsoever,” Burckle continued. “However, the state has admitted that we had poor training, we did have inconsistent enrollment processes dating back to 2007.

“So, we admitted that and said we’ll take on a minimal increase in the state’s risk provided that Standard takes on the lion’s share of the increased responsibility.”

Former State Insurance Superintendent Don Letherer called the deal one of the strangest he’s ever run into.

“I don’t know how in the heck that can happen,” Letherer said. “To me, it doesn’t make any sense at all. They’re not an insurance company. They’re not licensed as an adjuster. And I don’t know how in the world they can do that.”

Letherer added he has never seen this kind of situation before.

The agreement with Standard does not resolve all of the outstanding issues. For example, out of the thousands of state employees who have been paying life insurance premiums, none have been provided with an important document called a certificate of insurance even though it is required by law.

“When somebody dies, people don’t always know what they are insured for or not insured for,” Letherer said. “How in the world would people know where to go to cash in on the life insurance if they have no certificates?”

While Burckle conceded employees paying for Standard policies have not received those certificates, Letherer points to that as a violation of state law.

“It’s a super problem because, for one thing, the state statutes on insurance say a group program must include group certificates to the individual insureds, and it wasn’t done in this case,” Letherer said.

As the state continues to battle Standard, Burckle has a message for state employees.

“We have got your back,” he said. “We are going to make sure that if you’ve been paying premiums and you suffer a death or your dependent suffers a death that you will be covered.

“No state employee has to worry whether they are covered or not covered.”

The State Personnel Office also said employees will be protected.

“My job is to make sure that our employees are properly being covered in compliance with the Personnel Act and that we’re insuring their safety and their welfare,” Moser said. “We have an obligation. We made a promise that we would do certain things. We have to fulfill that promise.”

Letherer still considers the situation “mind-boggling” and said he doesn’t understand how it was allowed to happen.

“Life insurance especially has to be certain,” he continued. “If it’s not certain, you need to seek who’s responsible for it not being certain. I think there’s a lot of fault to go around, and I think it’s both sides.”

As a direct result of what’s happened with Standard Insurance, the state has now contracted with a private Human Resources firm to handle state employee benefits. The third party administrator will be paid $1.4 million a year to service benefit plans for all state employees.

Meanwhile, some state employees have filed a class action lawsuit naming both Standard and the state of New Mexico for failing to protect their life insurance benefits. The case is pending.

Larry Barker Investigators

SAN JUAN COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Meet 23-year-old Bobby Fry. As seen in this 1996 home video, he appears to be a low key guy and sometimes the life of the party.

Whether yukking it up on Halloween or a balloon fight, Bobby Fry’s antics appear to be just harmless play.

But don’t let these images deceive you.

“I’m currently serving three life sentences, and I am on death row,” Fry told an MSNBC reality show from inside the Penitentiary of New Mexico. “I am in for four counts of murder.”

The facts are clear: Bobby Fry is a vicious mad-dog killer whose trail of blood across San Juan County led to the savage beating deaths of four victims. His weapons of choice included knives, a broomstick and a sledgehammer.

Today Bobby Fry ranks as one of New Mexico’s most heinous serial killers.

How could anybody be so evil? Ask former San Juan County Assistant District Attorney Joe Gribble.

“You want me to give you about who he is or what he’s about?” Gribble said. “There’s no way I know.

“But I’ll tell you this: Based on the facts of the case, there’s no question. He’s a cold blooded murderer.”

To Assistant Attorney General Steve Suttle, part of the prosecution team, Fry is simply a wanton killer.

“He’s that brutal. He’s that unsocialized that apparently for him killing’s just fun,” Suttle said. “Picking a random victim and killing them just for fun. There’s no robbery here. There’s no motive of monetary gain.

“There’s no motive of past acrimony. He just kills people, and apparently he enjoys killing people.”

Fry’s murderous rampage began on Thanksgiving 1996 at a Farmington head shop called Eclectic. He wanted to eliminate witnesses to a burglary, so Fry murdered and nearly decapitated Joseph Fleming, 25, and Matthew Trecker, 18.

“They were beaten, had their throats cut,” Fry said. They died violently, very violently.”

Two years later, Fry and a friend, Leslie Engh, met Donald Tsosie at a Farmington bar and offered to give him a ride home. Instead they lured Tsosie, 40, to the rugged backcountry near the Arizona border.

Tsosie was from Ganado, Ariz., on the Navajo reservation. On that April night 15 years ago he was beaten, robbed, kicked, hit with a shovel and a broomstick. Then he was shoved off a cliff. His body was found a month later.

“They poked his eyes with a stick and injured him further after they had beaten him, and he died sometime later left in the desert,” said Dustin O’Brien, chief deputy district attorney for San Juan County. “He chose victims that needed help. He chose people that were defenseless. He’s a monster.”

And then there’s Betty Lee, a 36-year-old Diné College student at Shiprock.

“It’s not easy to come to terms with the fact that she is gone,” her brother Phillip Joe told KRQE News 13. “To think about what she endured and the time that the assault was taking place was, I can’t picture somebody doing that to her.”

“She was always bright and accommodating and sociable and cheerful and always liked to tease us as her brothers and sisters,” added Betty’s brother Rev. Bill Lee. “So she always had a smile on her face.”

Betty Lee’s nightmare took place on a June evening 13 years ago. She was stranded without a car and needed a ride home. Fry and Engh offered to help. They drove to this desolate spot in rural San Juan County and then, without warning, viciously attacked the mother of four.

“It’s probably a woman’s worst nightmare,” ex-prosecutor Gribble said.

Detectives would interrogate Engh at length recording his admissions on video.

“When Bobby, Bobby first grabbed her hair and pulled her out, she yelled, ‘Why? Why are you doing this to me? What are you doing?”‘ he said during the interrogation.

“I can’t even imagine what was going through her head during this time,” ex-prosecutor Gribble said. “He stabbed her, and then Betty Lee was able to pull the knife out, escaped.

“And then (Fry) went to his car and got a sledge hammer, chased her down and killed her. I couldn’t imagine a worse situation for anyone. It’s a horrible death.”

During his interrogation Engh said Lee screamed when Fry hit her with the sledge hammer.

“When he was swinging it, and then she just, she just stopped after a couple of times of him swinging it,” Engh told detectives.

“They beat her to death for absolutely no reason,” Suttle said. “One of those crimes that just defies explanation in terms of why would anybody do this unless it was just for the fun of it?”

For Betty Lee’s sister and brother, life would never be the same.

“I am just really scared,” Bessie Kee said. “I don’t think it’s safe to live in this world if you know what the men did to her.”

“It’s been very hard. She was dad’s favorite girl.”

“To think about what she endured and the time that the assault was taking place was, I can’t picture somebody doing that to her,” Phillip Joe said. “The punishment that he has been given I believe is righteous. It is not my right to say he should die, but the level of evil that he has committed makes it hard to try and reason for forgiveness.”

Following his conviction for the deaths of Trecker and Fleming, Fry was handed two consecutive life prison terms. For the murder of Donald Tsosie, he was sentenced to a third life sentence. And for killing Betty Lee, a jury ruled 28-year-old Bobby Fry be put to death.

That was 11 years ago.

Since then Fry’s lawyers have been fighting hard to keep their client out of the execution chamber. And even though the Betty Lee murder conviction was upheld on appeal years ago, his execution date can’t be set due to creative manipulation by his lawyers.

“He’s not facing death in the near future,” O’Brien said. “It’s not likely that that sentence will be executed anytime soon.”

The delays and court extensions are due the defense team, he added.

Fry’s public defender did not return a call from KRQE News 13 asking for comment on the case.

Before a death sentence can be carried out, the case must be reviewed twice: first by the New Mexico Supreme Court and secondly by the federal courts. However, in Bobby Fry’s case neither has happened. His legal defense team has put up one roadblock after another. Robert Fry’s death sentence has been on hold for almost 10 years.

“The victims of this case and society in general deserve to have the penalty assessed carried out,” Suttle said. “It was the law at the time, it was properly applied, and people should be concerned that someone can delay that through maneuvering for this many years.”

For the last 11 years, Robert Fry has bided his time in maximum security at the Penitentiary of New Mexico outside Santa Fe.

“There’s nothing I’ve done that God hasn’t forgiven me for,” Fry said.

These days, he strolls the prison halls, Bible in hand, telling a TV reality show he’s a changed man.

“You hear a lot of people who come to prison and, ‘Oh, I found God. Well, I did,” he said during the MSNBC reality show.

Is Bobby Fry remorseful? We don’t know. Here’s what we do know. Along a rutted dirt road in San Juan County’s rugged backcountry are some faded flowers, a memorial to the memory of Betty Lee, murdered on this spot 13 years ago.

“It just seems like yesterday that she left us,” Betty Lee’s niece Wilhelma Clah said. “It was really brutal what she had to endure. We just want to put this behind us and make sure that justice is done.”

Convicted and sentenced to the death penalty in 2002, and it’s now 2013. Has justice been done in the case of Robert Fry? O’Brien thinks not for the victims and not for their families, and Suttle thinks not for society as a whole.

“You reach a point, I think, Larry, where because of your behavior you cease to have the right to live among the rest of us,” Suttle said. “I think Robert Fry based on this record and what I know about the case, is one of those people.”

Larry Barker Investigates

SANTA FE (KRQE) – They are fakes and frauds, counterfeits designed to deceive. But, it’s not just deception.

It’s a crime to misrepresent Native American arts and crafts, in some cases a felony.

A Texas tourist paid $480 for a squash blossom necklace purchased from a now-defunct Santa Fe gift shop. However, tests show the stones, represented as lapis, are actually plastic imitations.

“I would say they are pretty good fakes,” said Michael Spilde, a University of New Mexico scientist who examined the purported gemstones under an electron microscope.

And then there’s turquoise. It may not sparkle like diamonds or glitter like gold, but this gemstone is the basis for an industry that pumps millions of dollars into the New Mexico economy.

It doesn’t look like much at the mine, but once it’s cut and polished, turquoise is recognized worldwide for its beauty in Indian arts and crafts. Joe Dan Lowry, literally, wrote the book–actually two books–on turquoise.

“Turquoise is the people’s gemstone,” Lowery told KRQE News 13. “They’re buying the color, they’re buying the beauty, they’re buying the mystique of what turquoise represents.”

Natural turquoise can be pricey. But not all pricey turquoise is the real deal. For example, a rare gem may be worth $20,000 while a cheap imitation is worth less than $10.

The illegal misrepresentation of Indian arts and crafts is a huge underground business in New Mexico.

A cabochon looks like different semiprecious stones. In fact the shaped and highly polished object is a $2 piece of plastic made in China.

“The consumer thinks that this artist or this store is selling them a pretty rarity,” Lowry said. “Instead they are getting pure plastic.”

Other counterfeits are made out of low-grade turquoise, which resembles chalk. If you pump in plastic resins and epoxy and artificially alter the color and hardness, you get stabilized turquoise that can be cut and polished.

“An imitation looks more and more like the original, and with today’s science and technology you can make some incredible stuff that will blow your mind,” Lowry added.

Despite the law requiring written disclosure if an item is not authentic, some merchants resort to blatant deception anyway. Take for example a turquoise necklace peddled by Kokochile, a Santa Fe gift shop just off the plaza.

“Is this turquoise?” KRQE News 13, working with a hidden camera, asked a Kokochile employee.

“Stabilized, yes. Turquoise, yes,” the employee replied.

KRQE News 13 then came back for a second visit.

“This is stabilized,” an employee said.

“Stabilized turquoise?” KRQE News 13 queried.

“Yeah. It’s called turquoise,” the employee said.

Just down the street at Santa Fe’s Long John Silver a pair of earrings caught KRQE News 13’s attention.

“Those are Zuni inlay. They’re 180 (dollars). You are going to be half off, 90 bucks,” the store clerk said as the hidden camera rolled. “They are signed by the artist. They’re sterling, and the stones are natural.

“Turquoise of course, lapis, coral, mother of pearl, black onyx, malachite.”

Up the block at Wind River Trading Company another pair of earrings was represented as Indian handcrafted with natural stones.

“Opal, spiny oyster shell and turquoise,” the employee there said.

At the Museum of New Mexico gift shop in the Palace of the Governors a turquoise necklace was for sale for $27.

“This is actually turquoise that has been compressed, and I think the guy is from San Felipe,” the museum employee said. “I don’t know what his process is. It’s a secret.”

Asked what, then, the material was, the employee replied, “It’s turquoise.”

And then there is the Smithsonian’s online gift shop. The national museum claimed a pair of earrings there was adorned with Arizona turquoise.

KRQE News 13 took its purchases to Professor Carl Agee at the University of New Mexico Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences for testing. The Museum of New Mexico necklace was easy.

“This is without doubt not turquoise,” Agee said. “It’s some other mineral or some other substance. Anything but turquoise. It is not turquoise.”

And what about Wind River’s $55 turquoise and opal earrings?

“The turquoise-colored material in this sample is not genuine,” Agee said. “It’s some other material, not turquoise.

“I’m taking a look at the opal now, and this scratches as if it were plastic. This is absolutely an imitation. No question about it.”

At Long John Silver they claimed the $81 earrings contained semiprecious stones.

“I think the whole thing is plastic,” Agee continued. “It’s as if they are all the same material except they are different colors.”

A microscopic exam of the Kokochile necklace was inconclusive, so Agee cut one of the beads in half with a diamond saw.

“Oh, look at that. That’s interesting,” he said. “The matrix is only on the outside.”

Turquoise does no act like that in the natural world, he added.

UNM research scientist Michael Spilde performed the final test by putting the bead under a scanning electron microscope.

“I haven’t found any turquoise in there,” he said. “It looks to be mostly silicate minerals cemented together with epoxy.”

The electron microscope also showed the Smithsonian’s claim of ‘Arizona turquoise’ to be bogus.

“It’s absolutely not turquoise,” Spilde said.

But was there any turquoise the piece? “Absolutely none,” he added.

A spokeswoman for the Smithsonian told KRQE News 13 the institution made a mistake. The jewelry has been removed from the online catalog, and all purchasers will get an apology and a refund.

And how did the Palace of the Governors end up selling a fake? Jamie Clements apologized on behalf of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, which operates the gift shop.

“This was an artist that represented the piece to us, which we then labeled as such when we sold it in our shop, and as you pointed out to me, that ended up being incorrect,” Clements said. “Our immediate action was to re-evaluate our buying policies to make sure that this won’t happen in the future.”

Anyone who feels misled will be offered a full refund, he added.

But don’t look for refunds at Kokochile. KRQE News 13 returned to the store and confronted an employee about the fake turquoise necklace sold there.

KRQE News 13: It is a crime to misrepresent Indian Arts and crafts.
Employee: OK
KRQE News 13: That’s what you did.
Employee: OK.
KRQE News 13: What are you going to do about that? Who’s the owner of the store?
Employee: He’s not here.
KRQE News 13: Where is he?
Employee: I don’t know.
KRQE News 13: When will he be back?
Employee: I don’t know.

The manager at Wind River trading referred KRQE News 13 to the store owner. On the phone Jean DeAngelis would not comment on the earrings unless she could do her own test. Wind River stands behind the merchandise it sells, she said.

At Long John Silver they didn’t just misrepresent jewelry.

“These here are Navajo rugs. They are newer made within the last 10 years,” the employee said. “They’re made by the Nez family up in the Four Corners. They use natural vegetable dyes and real wool, of course, natural wool. They’re $400 apiece.”

Authentic Navajo weavings are painstakingly handmade by native weavers using hand-spun wool and natural dyes. The one at Long John Silver however is a fake. In fact, the exact same weaving, which is mass produced in India, is sold online for $66

“In India? Really?” said Kim Ulibarri, who owns Long John Silver with her mother.

Ulibarri admitted she’s not an expert.

“When the rugs were purchased, they were purchased from a Native American who represented himself as someone from the Nez family from the Navajo Reservation,” Ulibarri said. “So I took his word in good faith that they were authentic Navajo rugs.”

Ulibarri said she inherited the business from her father.

“He passed away a year ago,” she said. “I’ve been put in charge of the business, and I’m trying to learn day by day.

“From this point I’ll make sure that everything is authenticated and that I don’t just take the word of someone.”

According to state law, it is the responsibility of merchants who sell Indian arts and crafts to accurately represent their merchandise.

———

Extras

The Real and the Fakes

Learn More about Turquoise and its history:

Turquoise Museum, 2107 Central Avenue NW, Albuquerque

Turquoise Museum Official Site

Turquoise book – Author Joe Dan Lowry:

Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone

Lear how to spot imitations:

Turquoise:

Tips from Navajo silversmith – YouTube video

Opal:

Spotting synthetic opal – YouTube video

Larry Barker Investigates

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Dr. Chris Garcia is among New Mexico’s most respected educators in a career spanning 40 years.

He has been a University of New Mexico professor, vice president, college dean, provost and the university’s 17th president.

Today that distinguished career is in ruins. In one fell swoop Garcia went from the heights of academia to a police interrogation room where he was read his Miranda rights.

Photos: Southwest Companions ~ The Evidence

Garcia’s downfall was his secret participation in a high class call girl service. It’s not your typical North Valley massage parlor, however. You see, these Southwest Companions were part of a sophisticated, high-tech criminal enterprise, a virtual house of prostitution.

“You have a website that’s promoting, advertising, soliciting customers and prostitutes,” said Mark Drebing, a Bernalillo County deputy district attorney. “This wasn’t just involving talk about sex. This was involving sexual acts for hire.”

Albuquerque Police Department Sgt. Jason Peck is assigned to the Special Investigations Division.

“It was a big deal,” Peck told KRQE News 13. “Southwest Companions reached across the country. These women are professional prostitutes who travel from city to city and conduct sex for hire.

“Southwest Companions was not open to just anybody who wanted a prostitute. It was operated as an exclusive, password-protected, members-only club offering more than a hundred top-dollar call girls.

“It wasn’t an open website that just any random public member can access,” Peck continued. “These were people who were looked into, backgrounded, that were confirmed not law enforcement members, thus making it a very secure place to conduct illegal activity.”

Drebing said that presented a challenge for investigators.

“This was, in my opinion, a very sophisticated operation because both the prostitutes and the customers, the johns, remained anonymous,” he said. “There wasn’t an easy way that law enforcement could track who was on the website.”

Among the ladies selling sex on Southwest Companions was Russian Emma, known to police as Konia Prinster. Now Konia describes herself as a supermodel and a philanthropist and is often photographed in the company of Hollywood stars. But in New Mexico, Russian Emma is a $300-an-hour call girl.

“Over a thousand men were participants in illegal sex for hire in Albuquerque,” Peck said. “Southwest Companions had higher-end prostitutes. Not just anyone can afford $300 for an hour.”

Sassygwin describes herself as a “country girl,” but in the city police identify Sassy as 36-year-old Virginia Montaño. Records show Sassygwin charges as much as $700 for unspeakable sex acts.

Sweet Seduction calls herself a career entertainer who likes to play guitar and the harmonica. But behind closed doors, Sweet Seduction plays a different tune. Detectives identify her as 51-year-old Deborah Innis, a $300-an-hour hooker.

As many as 1,400 men actively participated in the Southwest Companions website. After making a date with one of the elite call girls, the johns then routinely boasted on the site about their sexual experience in intimate detail.

“Generally (the customers) were upstanding citizens within this community soliciting prostitutes and remaining anonymous,” Drebing said.

An Albuquerque businessman arrested for his involvement described the operation when he was interviewed by police: “Southwest Companions creates a safe environment for man and prostitutes to hook up with.”

The driving force behind New Mexico’s elite call-girl service was an East Coast university professor and part-time resident of Santa Fe. By day Dr. David Flory taught physics at New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University. Online Flory was known as “David 8,” the covert owner of Southwest Companions.

“He was operating and owning that website, and it was clear from his posts as well as his statements it was for the purposes of prostitution,” Drebing said.

Flory was arrested in 2011 for promoting prostitution. During a police interrogation he denied breaking the law.

“I hardly think what I am doing is promoting prostitution,” he said. “It’s a place for people to talk.”

So what, then, was the purpose of Southwest Companions?

“Well, to provide a safer place for people who want to indulge in adult activities without the dangers of the street, without the dangers of the drugs, without some of the problems that in my view occur with some of the unpleasant sides of prostitution,” Flory said.

And then there’s Garcia.

“He was very, very well-liked, very well-appreciated, and a lot of people had a lot of admiration for him,” said Jamie Koch, vice chair of the UNM Board of Regents.

Nobody knew about Garcia’s secret life. Behind the closed door of his UNM office, the one-time university president would log onto Southwest Companions as “Burque Pops.”

“His role was to maintain the anonymity and confidentiality of the website members.” Drebing said.

“Chris Garcia scheduled the girls on a calendar, projecting girls who were coming into the town,” added Peck. “We might have a girl coming to town next week. He would announce her coming, post some reviews about her.”

So, was Garcia in it for the money?

“There wasn’t ever any money exchanged to the moderators of the website,” Peck continued. “Chris Garcia, however, was actively posting that he was in fact dating these prostitutes.”

Asked if the evidence showed Garcia had a hooker problem, Peck replied, “Yes.”

Garcia’s distinguished career came crashing down two years ago when he was arrested and accused of promoting prostitution.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Koch said. “That’s not the Chris Garcia I knew.”

A search of his campus office revealed sex toys and porn and his university computer was seized. At APD, Garcia declined to give a statement to detectives.

Two years later, the criminal case against Flory and Garcia came to an abrupt end. Because New Mexico’s prostitution laws were first written in 1921, 50 years before the invention of the home computer, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled an online call-girl service did not meet the legal definition of a house of prostitution.

Without the possibility of a successful prosecution, the district attorney dropped the case and closed the Southwest Companions criminal file. Today boxes of unused evidence sit in storage. Flory resigned from Fairleigh Dickinson and did not respond to a request for comment.

Garcia would not agree to be interviewed about his role in the call girl operation. He did, however, offer an apology.

“I’m sorry for any mistakes I made,” Garcia said. “I apologize to my wife, family, friends, and the UNM community.”

Garcia’s affiliation with the University of New Mexico has been suspended. A UNM spokeswoman says the university may permanently revoke Garcia’s affiliation.

Asked if Garcia were to walk in the room right now, Regent Koch told us, “I would grab his hand and shake it and give him a good hug and say, ‘Good luck.’ ”

Larry Barker Investigates

CHILILI, N.M. (KRQE) – The secluded landscape of juniper and piñon near Chilili is at the heart of an astonishing bamboozle worthy of a star-studded Hollywood thriller.

Photos: NM Movie Scandal

There’s only one way to describe the tale of what happened here in the Manzano Mountains: Bizarre.

The cast of characters include a strong-willed New Mexico activist, film extras posing as Taliban fighters, box-office movie stars and Chilili property owner Patrick Elwell.

“It’s land that my grandfather owned and his father owned” Elwell told KRQE News 13. “It’s been in the family probably over 80 years.

“It was a shock. It was like, ‘How in the hell did all this happen?'”

Patrick lives in Albuquerque and checks on his remote mountain property once a year. In May, he logged onto Google for a bird’s-eye view. He expected to see his forested foothills but instead saw something else.

“I saw a town,” he said. “There were curtains in the windows. It was well-traveled. We could still see parts of it were under construction, but nobody was around.

“I says, ‘There’s no way that could be my property.'”

It happened when Patrick wasn’t looking. A Hollywood movie company moved in for a two-week extravaganza.

They brought in 150 crew members, 20 semi trailers, eight vans, three generators and a mobile kitchen. And then they transformed Patrick’s quiet New Mexico paradise into war-torn Afghanistan.

They built a replica of an Afghani village and then bombarded it with simulated grenades and gunfire. There were explosions, helicopters and firefights. It was all part of the star-studded action drama “Lone Survivor.”

Hollywood has been using New Mexico as a backdrop since the early days of silent-movie cowboy Tom Mix, but this set was different. In fact, it may go down as one of the biggest blunders in the state’s 100-year history of movie making.

And it caught the attention of Nick Maniatis, who heads up the New Mexico Film Office.

“I alerted the production that we may have a problem here,” Maniatis said.

The Backstory

A year ago the movie makers built a 28-room Afghan village, brought in Hollywood actors, scores of extras and shot a multimillion-dollar motion picture on Patrick Elwell’s land. The problem? No one bothered asking Patrick Elwell.

In fact, by the time Patrick found out a movie had been made on his property, the cast and crew were long gone. In New Mexico “Lone Survivor” takes on a new reality. You see, these Hollywood actors are not just playing Navy SEALS, they’re squatters, trespassers.

How could this happen? Did the film company get duped?

“Uh, yes,” Maniatis said. “The production thought they were dealing with an owner that actually turns out I guess is not, so there’s the rub.

“It’s just one of those bad situations for everyone.”

Asked if it was a big deal that a movie production company came into the state and built an Afghan village on Elwell’s land, Maniatis replied, “I think, you know, it’s an interesting issue.”

Jonathon Slator was “Lone Survivor’s” location scout. Slator chose this spot near Chilili because it looks a lot like Afghanistan. But one thing Slator didn’t do is verify property ownership.

A local named Juan Sanchez told Slater he controls all the property in this area. If you want to shoot a movie here, you deal with Juan. So “Lone Survivor” struck a deal.

In real life Juan is chair of the New Mexico Land Grant Council and president of the Chilili Land Grant. But as it relates to this property, Juan Sanchez is an imposter.

Yet the money the production company paid the Chilili Land Grant was quite real.

“Thirty thousand dollars,” Sanchez said.

To understand what’s happened here you have to go back to 1841 when the 40,000-acre Chilili Land Grant was created by the Mexican government. Through the years much of the original grant property was sold off.

Sanchez, however, as Chilili president claims those sales were illegal, and as a result the land grant does not recognize any private land ownership here.

“It was fraud,” Sanchez said. “Those individuals that were selling those properties within the grant had no right to do that. Anyone that has a deed within the Chilili Land Grant doesn’t have the ownership of the land.”

In Patrick Elwell’s case, his ancestors were among the first settlers here. His great-grandfather farmed the land some 80 years ago. His grandparents deeded the property to Patrick in 1987.

“I own it,” Elwell said. “The land grant doesn’t own this land. It sits within the land grant, but this property is not the land grant’s property.”

Still, Sanchez maintains Elwell’s deed is worthless.

“Correct,” he told KRQE News 13. “If he has a deed to the land from his grandfather, then his grandfather gave him a deed. Anybody can give a deed for anything. I could give you a deed to the moon, you record it in the clerk’s office, and that’s going to be your piece of property.”

Even though the issue of private property ownership within Chilili was settled by the New Mexico Supreme Court years ago, Sanchez remains defiant. He does not respect the court ruling, he said, “Because we feel it violated our rights.”

Bernalillo County Attorney Randy Autio said he is not aware of anything confirming the Chilili Land Grant owns the property.

“With this particular piece of property I have not seen any evidence of any claims to ownership other than by Mr. Elwell,” he said.

The Hollywood Kiss-Off

Shortly after Elwell started asking questions, the “Lone Survivor” movie set disappeared. The only evidence of the trespass today is a few pieces of lumber and acres of bulldozed vegetation.

“You can see, they’ve taken down shrubs, trees, I mean they just leveled it,” Elwell said surveying the damage. “It’s pretty sad. It really is that somebody from out of town would come in and do this and have no respect for the property or the people who own it.”

Elwell called the “Lone Survivor” production company about the trespass. Ron Lynch, the executive in charge, told him to buzz off. Lynch said the film company did everything it was supposed to do and that he had no further clarification.

“The one discussion I had with the man in Connecticut felt that I was just trying to shake him down for money and that basically for me to just go fly a kite,” Elwell said.

The Film Office also got involved, but Maniatis said his last correspondence from the company suggests it’s not interested in resolving the issue.

“It bothers me that they cleared my land of all the vegetation without my permission,” Elwell continued. “It bothers me that somebody else can come along and say, ‘I own this piece of property. Pay me.’

“It bothers me that nobody, state government, county government, will not stand up for the right landowner and say, ‘Wait a minute. Something’s been done wrong.'”

“Lone Survivor” is not the only film production to contract with Juan Sanchez. In 2011 “The Avengers” shot two scenes on private property within the land grant.

“They shot a scene of when Thor and Captain America and Iron Man were in a battle,” Sanchez said.

Moments after our interview with Elwell, Sanchez dropped by to order us off Chilili Land Grant property.

“I’m telling you you are trespassing, and I’ll go call the cops now,” he threatened.

He then got into this exchange with Elwell:

Sanchez: “My property as the land grant is 10 miles that way, 10 miles that way, six miles that way, and four miles that way. That’s my land. I do not see anywhere it says that it’s his land.

Elwell: “Go down to the county assessor. Go look at who has been paying the property tax on here for the last 80 years. Go down there, and it’s been proven that this is my property.”

Sanchez: “There is no proof.”

Elwell: “The hell there isn’t.”

Sanchez: “Show me a piece of paper.”

Elwell: “Show me yours.”

Sanchez: “I will.”

Elwell has now presented the “Lone Survivor” production company with an invoice for the use of his property and for the damage done to the native vegetation. And the New Mexico Film Office can hold up payment of the company’s film tax rebate until the Elwell property-use issue is resolved.

“Lone Survivors” opens in theaters in December.

A secluded New Mexico mountain meadow is the backdrop for an astonishing bamboozle worthy of a star studded Hollywood thriller. This is the untold story of “Lone Survivor” and how the New Mexico based movie production may have committed one of the biggest blunders in the state’s 100 year movie making history. The cast of characters includes a strong willed New Mexico activist, film extras posing as Taliban fighters, box office movie stars and a quiet, unassuming office worker trying to mind his own business.

Larry Barker Investigates

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – They cut wires and bypassed sophisticated safeguards clandestinely for almost a year so that convicted drunken drivers could beat the system.

At the center of this scheme? A device that may be the single most effective tool available in the battle against drunken driving: the ignition interlock.

“We can’t stop people from drinking, but we can stop them from drinking and driving,” George Lesini, vice president of an interlock manufacturer, told KRQE News 13. “There’s a very big investigation going on with this right now. I’m sure there’s going to be some criminal charges.”

Anyone convicted of DWI must have an interlock on their vehicle for at least a year. Get a fourth DWI and you’ll have one for life.

Today there are more than 11,000 New Mexicans on the road with court-ordered ignition interlocks.

“You blow into the interlock; it measures your breath for alcohol content,” Lesini explained. “If it’s above 0.025, you cannot start the vehicle.”

To insure security and safety, an interlock must be installed by a licensed dealer.

For example, Budget Interlock installed interlocks here in Albuquerque. The firm connected hundreds of court-ordered devices on vehicles driven by drunken drivers.

But there was something wrong with those installs. Something sinister. Something underhanded. Something illegal.

“Car is bypassed where you don’t even have to blow into the interlock to start it,” said an investigator as he reviewed video of one of the rigged devices. “You can see the little bypass right here, the jumper. No interlock in here; not plugged in. Key in the ignition, there ya go. It starts.”

You see, select customers got an unadvertised, secret deal. In more than a dozen cases, Budget cut and sliced wires. Rigged interlocks allowed DWI offenders to beat the system by driving with devices that had been covertly disabled.

“See the yellow bypass right here,” the investigator continued. “Not on the starter. Interlock not plugged in. Vehicle is running.”

In case after case, Budget circumvented the interlock’s security system to render the device inoperative. The scam was uncovered by interlock manufacturer ADS, Alcohol Detection Systems Inc.

“We found a minimum of 12–I think it’s between 12 and 17, somewhere in there–of units that had been bypassed where people could continue to drive whether they were impaired or not, whether they even gave a sample or not,” Lesini said.

ADS documented the deceptive installs and turned the evidence over to the New Mexico Department of Transportation.

“These vehicles had been tampered with for a number of months,” said Transportation Secretary Tom Church. “They were essentially disabled in violation of the intent and the law.

“This is a criminal offense, Larry. We’ve never seen anything of this magnitude.”

ADS has more than 100,000 ignition interlocks in operation today nationwide but has never seen a case like this.

“We’ve had a case where an individual tampered with their own unit, and we caught them, but never had a case where a dealer was doing this and on this scale,” Lesini said.

Budget’s installer admits rigging wiring to bypass the interlock but said he didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong. In exchange for an on-camera interview KRQE News 13 agreed to obscure his identity.

He said 12 devices were temporarily disabled so the vehicles could be serviced by mechanics and added there was no criminal intent.

But how did the installer know how to bypass the interlock?

“ADS, Alcohol Detection Systems’ technical people sent us an email and told us how to do it,” the installer said.

While the installer repeated his assertion the manufacturer provided the information, ADS said that is not something it would do.

“It’s not true,” Lesini said. “We don’t bypass units. If the car is going to be worked on or something, it’s disconnected while the car is worked on and then reconnected, reset and then recalibrated.”

NMDOT’s Church added, “There is no legitimate reason to disable an ignition interlock.”

According to the DOT, of the DWI offenders who drove vehicles with bypassed interlocks, there were almost 500 tamper violations and 39 alcohol violations that were never reported to Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court.

“Basically (the installer was) making sure that people could drive whether they were intoxicated or not and wasn’t downloading it and giving the information to the courts as he was supposed to,” Lesini said.

So is it possible that the drivers of these vehicles didn’t know that the ignition interlock had been disconnected?

“Larry, if you breathe into the system it will allow you to start the car,” Church said. “They did not have to breathe into the system. I don’t believe there’s any way they could have not known.”

Following an investigation the DOT shut down Budget Interlock in July. Its installer told KRQE News 13 someone else at Budget also knew the interlocks had been bypassed.

“The owner, Joann Santistevan,” the installer said. “She was the manager, owner. I was an employee.”

Santistevan, who was president of Budget Interlock, said the installer’s claim is not true and that he acted alone.

“He was a trusted employee, and I did not know that he was circumventing the system,” Santistevan said. “There’s no way I would put people’s lives in danger if they are supposed to be installed properly.”

Santistevan described herself as, “Upset. Angry that he ruined my livelihood, my business, when I trusted him.”

The installer denies taking money under the table to rig interlocks.

“Nothing was done for any monetary gain because that was never even a thought,” the installer said adding no one offered him money or anything else to disconnect interlocks. “Never. It was never done that way, no.”

ADS isn’t so sure.

“Well, we have copies of some checks that were paid to him,” Lesini said. “We don’t know why they would be paid directly to him instead of to the company.”

New Mexico State Police have launched a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Metro Court has its own investigation into the DWI offenders who beat the system with disabled interlocks.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – From the outside, it looked like any number of other run-down auto-repair shops along Albuquerque’s East Central Avenue.

But behind the ramshackle facade lay what police say was one of the most prolific auto theft rings in the city’s history.

Anjum Tahir and Boback Sabeerin ran the operation for years. And while it’s impossible to tell for sure how far their reach stretched, Tahir and Sabeerin may have been responsible for hundreds of organized vehicle thefts around the metro area.

Car theft rings aren’t totally unheard of in New Mexico or around the country, but the scope of Tahir’s and Sabeerin’s operation put it in a different category.

It was the men’s longevity and their tactics, though, that really stood out.

“The simplicity of it was just incredible: how they did it and got away with it for an extended period of time without anybody picking up on it,” said Tim Fassler, a now-retired APD detective who oversaw a police investigation of the pair’s criminal enterprise.

A KRQE News 13 investigation reveals the key to making those tactics work: junked cars and Vehicle Identification Number plates.

Here’s how the scam worked: Tahir and Sabeerin would steal a vehicle, preferably a high-end model such as a BMW, a Hummer, a Lexus or a nice Ford pickup truck. Next, the pair would head for an auto auction, where they’d keep their eyes peeled for a wrecked or otherwise junked twin to one of the vehicles they’d stolen.

Tahir and Sabeerin would plunk down a few hundred bucks for the junked vehicle, pry off its VIN plate, then affix that plate to the hot car already in their possession.

And: Voila, a car with a new identity, ready for sale to the unsuspecting public for a substantial profit. They made their sales in parking lots and on street corners around the city.

“Let’s say you bought the salvage for $300,” Fassler explained. “You get a similar vehicle, switch the VIN numbers on it and you sell it to the public: in one case, $6,000 cash. That’s a whole lot of profit for a very little bit of work.”

Here’s an example of the men’s handiwork: They stole a Dodge Charger from a residence in the Northeast Heights. Two weeks later, they went to the insurance auto auction and bought a wrecked Charger for $700. They sold the stolen Charger to an unsuspecting victim for $11,000.

On another occasion, Tahir and Sabeerin stole a $14,000 BMW and retrofitted it with a VIN plate from a junked BMW they paid $1,200 for at the insurance auction.

Sandy Blalock of the New Mexico Recyclers’ Association told News 13 auto thieves live Tahir and Sabeerin commonly infiltrate the auto auctions.

“The value of a salvage to an auto thief is that they pay a very small amount for that vehicle, they usually tend to buy the very heavily damaged vehicles that really only have a value as far as scrap value,” Blalock said, adding that the scheme is particularly damaging in a place like New Mexico.

“It is a very big deal,” Blalock said. “The unrecovered auto theft rate in New Mexico is one of the highest in the country.”

It may not ever be possible to get a handle on the full breadth of the operation run by Tahir and Sabeerin.

“Potentially there’s a hundred victims out there right now without knowing they are driving a VIN switched stolen (vehicle),” APD auto theft detective Matt Morales said.

Detectives took nearly 30 vehicles and dozens of partially dismantled cars, trucks and SUVs out of the shop after a raid. It took nearly three days to catalog it all.

From there, the investigation turned to recovering vehicles from people who had unknowingly bought stolen vehicles from Tahir and Sabeerin on street corners and in vacant parking lots, police said. One of them was an elderly widow.

“This poor woman began to cry,” Fassler told KRQE News 13. “She paid $6,000 cash for it. She was alone. And I just felt for her because I have to do what I have to do. I have to take that vehicle back. The best we could do is prosecute the people who did this to her.”

As for Tahir and Sabeerin, they were convicted of auto theft and are now serving lengthy prison sentences.

But Blalock says they weren’t the only thieves using the VIN-switching scheme to sell stolen vehicles.

“They’re all over the state of New Mexico, and we have a high concentration of them right in the Albuquerque area,” he said.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – When Lacresia Rivera needed to run to the store, she did it in style.

Rivera had a whole parking lot to choose from. Typically, she went with the Cadillac Escalade.

It was a sweet deal, given that Rivera wasn’t making a car payment or writing a check to an insurance company for the privilege of driving the high-end, luxury SUV around town. She also didn’t have to pay for gas.

How was Rivera able to pull it off??

She’s a civilian employee at the Albuquerque Police Department’s vehicle seizure unit. The Escalade was forfeited by a convicted drunk driver. Taxpayers were footing the bill for maintenance on the vehicle – and for the gas that went in it.

The whole arrangement is in direct violation of numerous city of Albuquerque rules and policies.

And, a KRQE News 13 investigation shows Rivera was not alone.

Anna Griego and Kyle Evans, two of her coworkers, also were commandeering seized vehicles from the city’s forfeiture lot, driving them around town and taking them home. In addition to the Escalade, KRQE has learned that the employees were driving Nissans, GMC trucks and Chevy pickups.

They ran up healthy fuel tabs, too. In 2013, Griego’s taxpayer-funded gas tab was more than $1,500. Evans charged the city for more than $2,000. And Rivera pumped more than $2,300 into the gas-guzzling Escalade she wasn’t supposed to be taking home.

A city ordinance directs APD to impound vehicles of convicted drunken drivers who are arrested on suspicion of DWI. The city can eventually force the driver to forfeit the vehicle. According to the ordinance, APD is supposed to sell forfeited vehicles at auction.

It was skipping that last step that allowed Rivera and the others to perpetrate their joyriding scheme.

For example: Michael Baca was arrested in 2011 on suspicion of aggravated DWI following a hit-and-run accident. Police seized his Escalade and, a year later, a judge ordered the SUV forfeited to the city.

But instead of selling the Escalade at auction as the ordinance spells out, APD spent $7,000 fixing it up. Rivera then grabbed the keys and used it as her personal take home vehicle. She did the same with a Ford Ranger that was forfeited by an accused drunk driver in 2008.

News 13 asked City Councilor Don Harris which part of the ordinance allows APD employees to take forfeited vehicles and use them for personal use.

“Oh, it doesn’t say that anywhere,” Harris said. “And in fact I think the ordinance does not even allow the city to do anything other than sell these vehicles.”

For her part, Rivera refused to answer questions about what she and the others were doing.

Last month, News 13 presented its findings to top city officials, including Chief Administrative Officer Rob Perry and interim Police Chief Allen Banks.

“Its an entirely unacceptable, unapproved situation,” Perry said, adding that the city is looking into the matter. “That internal affairs investigation is looking at how long this practice has been going on. It could be years, many years, the severity of the violations, and it will involve administrative and disciplinary process up to and including termination if necessary.”

APD Sgt. Donovan Rivera supervises the department’s seizure unit. He told News 13 the practice has been going on for years – since before he arrived in the unit. Sgt. Rivera said he was aware civilian employees were using forfeited vehicles for personal use, but he didn’t know it was wrong.

Banks said he has put a stop to the practice, but the departing interim chief stopped short of saying the employees would have to reimburse taxpayers for the gas and maintenance charges.

“That’s something we have to look into,” Banks said. “I can’t say I’m going to hold these employees accountable and make them pay this money back. They will no long have take-home vehicles … and we will look to make sure we are doing everything right by what the city requires us to do.”

Councilor Harris said: “The most important thing is, the chief needs to take some action against these employees who are violating the public trust.”

Banks said the blame is his.

“Well ultimately, it’s my responsibility when I came on in August,” he said. “My responsibility is to make sure that this entire department is in compliance and at that point is where I failed. And since this being brought to our attention, that has been changed.”

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Surveillance video obtained by KRQE News 13 shows, irrefutably, that on some occasions, employees were taking money from the BioPark’s cash registers, hiding it under a counter, then slipping it into their wallets later. Read the full story»

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Something was amiss at the Albuquerque BioPark.

It was December, and staffers at the city’s Cultural Services Department were reviewing some year-end numbers: 1.2 million visitors, $4 million in total revenues.

Something wasn’t adding up.

“Director Betty Rivera over at Cultural Services was looking at reports that listed a combination of revenue and visitors at the Bio Park and noticed some anomalies,” said John Soladay, the city’s chief operations officer.

Surveillance video obtained by KRQE News 13 provides the evidence for the cash drain city officials just couldn’t figure out.

At least three employees hired through a temp agency were stealing cash right out of the BioPark’s cash registers. They weren’t even all that sneaky about it.

The footage shows, irrefutably, that on some occasions, employees were taking money from the registers, hiding it under a counter, then slipping it into their wallets later.

Other snippets of video show employees hiding their thefts behind a sheaf of papers.

In nearly every instance, the employees can be seen scouting the horizon to make sure the coast is clear before they rip off city money.

To catch the thieves, city officials used their contract private eyes, Robert Caswell Investigations.

“We went into the cashiers’ area and installed hidden cameras — like this pinhole camera — over the cash register area,” Bob Casey of RCI said, showing off a camera the size of a nickel.

The cashiers had no idea the city was recording their every move.

In mid-January, RCI pulled the cameras and began the long slog of reviewing the footage.

“The tedious part was having to view the video very slowly to watch and catch … the sleight of hand: movement that would show us that the money was not getting into the cash register,” Casey told KRQE News 13.

The longtime investigator said he didn’t think much of the BioPark thieves. When asked how good they were at grafting city money, he responded: “Not very. They got caught.”

RCI confronted the employees with the video evidence. All three confessed to stealing money. The private eyes turned the case over to City Hall.

The city would not release the temp employees’ names because the case is now the subject of a criminal investigation.

City officials said they don’t know how much money the employees stole or for how long they were stealing.

“Once again I don’t have a good handle on that,” Soladay said. “I can’t even give you a good estimate. It could be a thousand dollars or it could be much more. We simply don’t know.”

Soladay said the temp employees underwent background checks before they came to work at the Bio Park.

“Each of these cashiers, temporary employees, had two background checks, one through (the temp agency) and one through the city,” Soladay said. “Nothing showed in any of those background checks.”

The employees were fired, and the video was turned over to police for the criminal investigation.

“If you steal from us we’re going to fire you and prosecute,” Soladay said. “Pure and simple.”

Tagged: ABQ BioPark

Jerry Thorndyke wants you to think he’s a businessman.

He’s got a fleet of trucks, a hot-mix spreader, a steel-drum roller and a handful of employees working for his construction company.

Resources

Driveways are Thorndyke’s specialty.

But there’s a problem: Thorndyke isn’t much of a driveway man. In reality, he’s little more than a common con man.

One of his recent targets was a Valencia County man named Brian Culp.

“He asked me if I would be interested in having my driveway asphalted,” Culp said in an interview. “He said he had some leftover mix from a previous job and he usually charged $6.50 a square foot, he would give it to me for $2.50 a square foot.”

Here’s how Culp, a retired state employee, described the driveway paving job he paid Thorndyke $9,700 to complete: “This was a hit and run.”

KRQE News 13 approached Thorndyke with a camera rolling to get his reaction to Culp’s characterization of his work: “Get away from me with that,” Thorndyke said.

He told News 13 that he lives in Texarkana but he’s done construction work all over the Land of Enchantment.

“I run a lot of fires like this and do a lot of subcontracting jobs for a guy,” Thorndyke said. “A few years ago, you know where Zunis is? I did all of Zunis two or three years ago. He’s out of business now.”

On a recent afternoon, Thorndyke and his crew spent the afternoon laying asphalt at Culp’s place, then beat a hasty path to the bank to cash Culp’s check.

What was left behind was one heck of a mess. After only a week, the driveway already was falling apart. The specs for residential driveways call for about two-and-half inches of compacted asphalt. The paving at Culp’s place was less than an inch.

“Probably a D minus.” That was the grade Robert Wood, a licensed paving contractor from Albuquerque, gave the work Thorndyke did at Culp’s house.

“They didn’t have any intent in making a professional job,” Wood said. “This was get it done and get that check and get it to the bank. … It was put down cold. And there was a lot of hand work that was done unnecessarily, and this is what you get. This right here is not going to last.”

But Culp’s driveway wasn’t the end of the road for Thorndyke.

Most fly-by-night contractors would’ve been long gone. Thorndyke was still hanging around. With the lure of doing more paving work, he returned to repair the damage.

“A little cold right here,” he told Culp. “What that is a little cold spot that’s all it is. Just a cold spot. I’ll work it in and see what I can do for you.”

The poor craftsmanship wasn’t the only problem with Thorndyke, though. He also isn’t licensed in New Mexico — a fact that caught the attention of state construction regulators.

Following News 13’s investigation, Thorndyke had walked right into those investigators’ trap.

News 13 was present for this exchange: “We’re investigators for Construction Industries. … Mr. Thorndyke, I don’t know if you know it but in New Mexico it is a criminal violation to contract without a New Mexico contractor’s license. So we have a problem here. First thing is you are going to have to stop this work. You cannot do this work. It is a criminal act to do it.”

Pat McMurray heads up the state’s construction regulatory agency.

“We have 181 cases right now that are being investigated,” McMurray told News 13. “It’s a big problem here in New Mexico because the type of contractor that you are dealing with that’s unlicensed typically is incompetent. … Chances are the contractor has no workmen’s compensation insurance, there’s no bond to protect the homeowner, and so you are just out there … They’re offering a deal that sounds great … but nine times out of 10, it violates code.”

Investigators red-tagged Thorndyke’s work site at Culp’s place, and Thorndyke and his crew packed up for parts unknown. Thorndyke was slapped with two counts of contracting without a license and forced to pay Culp back the $9,700.

Wood summed up the scenario that played out at Culp’s home this way: “Its pretty sad. They come in with high pressure and the homeowner thinks, hey man if I don’t act now I’m going to miss out on this good deal … And this is the hazard. This is what you get.”

By the Numbers

Unlicensed Complaints received by CID March 2013- March 2014:	• Total Number of Unlicensed Complaints received by CID: 289
	• Total “Open” Cases: 131
	• Total Closed Cases: 158
2013 – 2014 Court Statistics for Unlicensed Cases
Number of Criminal Complaints Adjudicated in Court by CID: 104
Out of 104 cases adjudicated in court:	• Number of Pleas: 36
	• Number of Convictions: 40
	• Number of Warrants: 19
	• 9 Cases were dismiss due to no show of Witnesses

For each hospital in New Mexico, we chart the time, on average, that patients wait in emergency rooms before one of four outcomes: they see a doctor, they get sent home, they’re given pain medications for a broken bone, or they are admitted to the hospital. For each measure, lower numbers are better. Experts caution that very small differences between hospitals for a given measure are unlikely to correspond to noticeable differences in the real world. ER Wait Watcher

New Mexico's Report Card (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card) — New Mexico’s Report Card (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card)

For millions of Americans who experience sudden, serious illness or injury every year—and in the increasing scores of communities that must respond to disasters and mass casualty events —immediate access to quality emergency care is essential to saving life and limb. But the availability of that care is threatened by a wide range of factors, including shrinking capacity and an ever-increasing demand for services. Even as more and more Americans come to rely on emergency departments for their acute care needs, particularly aging and sick Boomers and people newly enrolled in Medicaid, such care will increasingly become harder to access.

This national Report Card rates the overall environment in which the emergency care system operates with a near-failing grade of D+. This is a poorer grade than the one earned in 2009, a C-.

These findings are the result of a comprehensive and focused study of the emergency care environment nationwide and state-by-state.

New Mexico

New Mexico continues to struggle with many aspects of the emergency care environment, facing high rates of fatal injuries; health care workforce shortages for specialists, primary care, and other providers; and a Medical Liability Environment that serves as a barrier to recruiting and retaining health care professionals.

Poor Access to Emergency Care has negatively affected the quality of care in New Mexico, resulting in long ED wait times, boarding of patients in the ED, and crowding.

Full Report

America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card (149 page Report)

State by State Comparison (Report Excerpts)

Overall State Grades (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014)

Within each of the letter grades in 2014, many states fall below the average, threatening to drop further if major and immediate improvements are not made. New Mexico’s overall grade is a D.

Access to Emergency Care State Grades (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014)

The national grade for Access to Emergency Care remains a D- as states continue to struggle with a plethora of issues, including health care workforce shortages, shortages of on-call specialists, limited hospital capacity to meet the needs of patients, long emergency department wait times, and increasing financial barriers to care. New Mexico’s Access to Emergency Care grade is an F.

Quality and Patient Safety Environment (erica’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014) — Quality and Patient Safety Environment (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014)

The nation continues to fare best in the Quality and Patient Safety Environment category, as many states have implemented systems and protocols to improve life-saving care and to facilitate effective and efficient systems of care. Despite improvements for a number of states in this category, the nation receives a C overall, representing a slight decline since 2009. New Mexico’s Quality and Patient Safety Environment grade is a D+.

Medical Liability Environment (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014)

The Medical Liability Environment in the United States is still in crisis and threatens to further diminish the availability of on-call specialists and other providers in states where the risks of lawsuit or costs of liability insurance are prohibitive. The nation again receives a C- for its overall Medical Liability Environment— however, while this indicates that the nation has failed to make progress, it does not mean nothing has changed. New Mexico’s Medical Liability Environment grade is a D-.

Public Health and Injury Prevention (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014)

The Public Health and Injury Prevention category is unique in that the overall focus is on areas where state systems and initiatives can preemptively have a tremendous impact on improving health outcomes and ultimately reduce the overall need for emergency care. One example of this is immunizations for children and the elderly—reducing the number of people susceptible to contagious disease will ultimately save lives and prevent cases from reaching the emergency department, leaving the health care system available for other emergent needs. New Mexico’s Public Health and Injury Prevention grade is a D+.

Disaster Preparedness (America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card – 2014)

While the states overall have continued to improve and refine their disaster preparedness planning and practices, the national grade has fallen slightly to a C-. This is due, in large part, to wide variations across the states in hospital capacity and personnel preparedness. New Mexico’s Disaster Preparedness grade is a D.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Six hours.

That’s how long an Albuquerque grandmother waited during a recent visit to the emergency room at a local hospital.

“I got a pain in my chest and it took me to the floor. I could not breathe,” the woman told KRQE News 13.

She was taken to a private hospital by ambulance and put on an IV. “They wheeled me out to the waiting room and I got up and sat in a chair.”

And then the woman waited. And then she waited some more, all the while feeling “rotten.”

I was feeling very bad. Very tired. I was having a little trouble breathing. And I just sit there,” she said.

And then she decided she’d had enough.

“I got up and told them I was going home, take the IVs out, and they talked me into staying some more,” the woman said. “So I stayed there probably another hour, and then I got up and told them to take the IVs out, I’m going home.”

What happened that day was not an isolated incident. In fact, it’s a daily occurrence. Hospital emergency rooms across New Mexico are so overcrowded that patients routinely wait hours to see a doctor. Sometimes the wait can be a half day or more.

Dr. Tony Salazar is President of the New Mexico Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He put the problem in context.

“The quality of health care is directly related to ER wait times,” Salazar told News 13. “We know that the longer a patient has to wait in the emergency department the increased liklihood of an adverse event for that patient.”

On average, about 240 patients come to the University of New Mexico Hospital ER every day. Dr. Steve McLaughlin chairs the school’s Department of Emergency Medicine.

“We know very directly that the longer patients wait the more likely they are to leave,” he said in an interview.

UNMH shared its internal tracking data of actual ER wait times with News 13. Those figures provided a first ever look at the state’s busiest emergency room, where about 12 percent of the patients who come to the ER each year leave before receiving medical treatment.

For example, 645 patients gave up before being seen by a doctor last August. And for a one-day look, consider April 4, 2013: 56 patients bailed out of the ER that day. And on May 9, 2013, 33 patients left the hospital’s ER without being seen — that’s fully 22 percent of those who came through the door that day.

News 13 asked McLaughlin how that’s possible.

“That’s a great question, and its complicated,” he replied. “I would say really it comes down to the fact that the number of folks that we need to take care of that are showing up and asking for our services is higher than our capacity to take care of those patients.”

It’s not just UNM. Every hospital ER in America wrestles with severe overcrowding.

But the tracking data from UNMH show that patients with injuries like broken bones and abdominal pain waited, on average, less than two hours. On the other side of the coin, some people in that category had to wait as long as 11 hours.

Patients with less severe symptoms — like back pain — waited on average about three hours. But some were in the ER an eye-popping 16 hours.

Inside the Story:

“I would say its absolutely not what we are striving for,” McLaughlin said. “But it’s reality. It’s the reality given the health care system we are in.”

The reality for private hospitals is equally challenging. For example, Albuquerque’s largest private hospital is Presbyterian.

Presbyterian’s ER sees about 2,000 fewer patients in an average month than UNMH — but that doesn’t necessarily mean shorter wait times.

“A lot of times it comes down to that we have to see the sickest patients first,” said Darren Shafer, medical director for Presbyterian’s ER. “When patients present to triage they are evaluated and its determined whether they are essentially able to safely wait or not … The challenge is we can sometimes have three heart attacks happening at the exact same time in our emergency department and we have to focus on those patients first.”

According to data supplied by Presbyterian, in November, patients with symptoms like chest pains and mental confusion spent, on average, less than two hours in the Presbyterian ER before seeing a doctor, according to data provided by the hospital. And patients with more serious conditions, such as gastrointestinal bleeding, waited about an hour.

But, in November, 88 patients sat for four hours at Presbyterian; 39 waited five hours; and 16 people waited six hours. One patient waited eight hours, and another sat for nine hours. Last year, 1,500 patients left Presbyterian’s emergency room without seeing a doctor.

Officials from the New Mexico Hospital Association — including President Jeff Dye and Chairman Beau Beames — refused News 13’s interview requests for this story.

“Thats really disappointing to hear that patients have come looking for care and they have given up on trying to be seen,” Shafer said. “Presbyterian is actually better than the national benchmark at around one percent in terms of left without being seen. But that being said we are still going to continue to improve. We’re still not going to say that’s acceptable until we don’t have anybody that ever leaves without being seen.

“I don’t think anyone should have to wait. I live in Albuquerque. I was born and raised here. My mother lives here. I don’t want her to come to the emergency department and have to wait. … Nothing is acceptable in terms of a wait time.”

Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque declined to share its ER wait time data with News 13. Christus St. Vincent Medical Center in Santa Fe did not respond to News 13’s request.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Edwin Abeyta and his business partner, Estevan Apodaca, are under a lot of scrutiny. Together they run the Elán Academy, an accredited beauty school in Albuquerque.

A KRQE News 13 investigation found that Elán Academy is at the heart of a licensing scandal involving fabricated documents.

“The documents that you have shown me that I’ve looked at certainly are highly suspect as to their legitimacy,” New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department Superintendent, Mike Unthank said.

Unthank says there is a high probability that individuals have received state licenses based on fabricated documents.

“I am not happy with what I am seeing at all,” Unthank said. “It looks like there has been some abuse and we want to get to the bottom of that.”

Elán graduate Ashley Jordan’s New Mexico cosmetologist license was issued two years ago. However, nobody with the New Mexico Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists noticed Jordan completed her yearlong education in less than a month.

According to Elán documents, Jordan earned 1,600 credit hours in 28 days.

Susan Trujillo also got a cosmetology license after graduating from Elán Academy. She completed one year of training in 27 days.

Kathy Ortiz, the deputy director for boards and commissions, said it is not possible to complete 1,600 hours in one month.

KRQE News 13’s investigation found Elán Academy doctored educational credentials for at least 16 students.

When asked if the transcripts appeared to be fabricated Ortiz said, “yes.”

Cosmetology is a profession requiring training, a proficiency test and a license.

Beauty school training includes courses in hair styling, manicuring, use of chemicals and disease prevention. In order to be licensed, cosmetology students must complete 1,600 credit hours at an accredited school.

The cost of the education is not cheap. Private beauty schools charge about $20,000 for the yearlong training.

Breakdown: Credit Hours, Cost (story continues below)

Subject	Hours Required
Theory	75
Sterilization, sanitation, bacteriology	75
Shampoo, Rinses, Scalp treatment	75
Chemical Rearranging, Perms and Relaxers	200
Hairstyling	150
Hair Coloring, Bleaching	125
Hair Cutting	200
Facials	175
Manicuring/Pedicuring	175
Salon Business, Retail Sales	50
Misc	300
Total:	1600

Private Cosmetology Schools
Elan Academy	$14,000
DeWolff’s College of Hairstyling & Cosemetology	$15,000
Olympian Academy School of Cosmetology	$18,741
Vogue College of Cosmetology	$18,251
The Avenue Academy Cosmetology Institute	$18,251

Even though Elán Academy supplied some of its graduates bogus transcripts, state regulators ignored obvious discrepancies and issued licenses anyway.

The state cosmetology board issued so many questionable licenses that it has now ordered a review of all Elán graduates going back four years.

When KRQE News 13 asked Unthank if there is a group of individuals that are improperly licensed he replied, “It would appear so, yes.”

Elán graduate Jerica Narr’s official transcript indicates she earned 1,600 credit hours in 20 days. The state cosmetology board issued her a license anyway.

KRQE News 13’s investigation found that Narr spent a year at the Urban Academy, now called Toni and Guy. When she dropped out leaving more than $3000 in unpaid bills, Toni and Guy refused to give her a transcript.

Narr received a fabricated transcript from Elán. Now, she is no longer licensed by the state.

“The Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists sets professional, training and hygienic standards to ensure customers receive quality services. The Board also investigates complaints from customers and takes appropriate disciplinary actions when acceptable and required standards are violated.”

Source: The Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists

Christopher Tsosie dropped out of an Albuquerque beauty school owing almost $7,000 in unpaid tuition. He ended up at Elán where his transcript was falsified.

Even though Tsosie’s cosmetologist license expired last year, he continues to style hair at an Albuquerque salon.

Andrew Jones, Victoria C DeVaca, Jazalyn Urbano, Carly Sheffer all got licenses based on false Elán transcripts.

In regards to the phony transcripts, Apodaca says it isn’t true. His co-owner, Abeyta, also says that Elán Academy is not fabricating transcripts.

“No, absolutely not…absolutely not,” Abeyta said. “In what way are they not accurate? Who started this, who initiated your little… I’m going to ask you to leave. I don’t want to talk to you.”

After KRQE News 13’s two month investigation, the state cosmetology board is now asking the Bernalillo county D.A. to look into criminal charges. Last week, the board issued an immediate cease and desist order stopping Elán from enrolling any new students pending further action of the board.

Junior & Community College Associate Degree Programs in Cosmetology
New Mexico Junior College
Associate in Applied Science	69 – 72 Credit Hours
Central New Mexico Community College
Cosmetology, Associate of Applied Science	68 – 69 Credit Hours

SIERRA COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Spaceport America was built with the idea to make New Mexico a leader in the aerospace industry by offering unique access to the heavens.

The spaceport would be home to the world’s first commercial passenger space launch facility.

Spaceport officials constructed a runway, launch pads, a terminal building and mission control. They promised to send astronauts into sub-orbit, create jobs, boost tourism, lift the economy and earn a ton of money.

Click here to see the entire history of the New Mexico Spaceport from beginning to today.

The grand opening was celebrated in 2011.

However, the promises made years ago turned out to be sky high. Today, other than a few dozen vertical rocket launches the spaceport sits mostly vacant.

The Spaceport cost $219,000,000 to build. It now loses about $500,000 each year.

Due to a slew of delays and technical setbacks, Spaceport America depends on taxpayers to keep its operation afloat.

“It’s a $220 million boondoggle.” Senator George Munoz said.

Senator Munoz serves on the Senate Finance Committee and says Spaceport America has not been careful with its money.

“They’ve thrown [public dollars] in any direction the wind blows.” Senator Munoz said.

During a two month long investigation, KRQE News 13 reviewed almost $13 million in Spaceport expenditures. One project that stuck out was a $9,000,000 contract to an Orlando, Florida firm called IDEAS.

“We felt we needed to take a little money and design an experience for guests that come to Spaceport America.” Spaceport America Executive Director Christine Anderson said.

Spaceport contracted with IDEAS to develop a Spaceport Visitor Experience.

“IDEAS is a company in Florida and it’s a very interesting company of people that used to work on Disney theme parks and EPCOT.” Anderson said.

IDEAS was paid millions of dollars to design a Visitor Center in Truth or Consequences.

“This is about a 5,000 or 6,000 square foot building with parking area off of the interstate at exit 79.” Anderson said.

The architectural team put together an animated movie showing how the building would blend with the environment. They spent years designing the building, landscaping, parking lots, exhibits, signs and ticket counters.

However, there was one thing missing from all those architectural plans – a place to build it.

The Spaceport doesn’t own the property where it hoped to build in Truth or Consequences. And, Spaceport officials admit they don’t have the money to buy it.

“It’s ridiculous,” Senator Munoz said.

Munoz says he has never seen a state project that spends millions of dollars designing a building on land it doesn’t own.

“Generally a facility is designed around where it’s going to go…You need to have the property in place first,” Representative Patty Lundstrom, who serves on a legislative Spaceport oversight committee, said. “It doesn’t make sense to spend millions of dollars on a design that you don’t know you can use. That is very questionable.”

The Visitor Center expenditures were authorized by the seven-member Spaceport Authority Board.

Rather than put all the futuristic exhibits in storage, the Spaceport has now decided to install them in a 70-year-old former senior citizens center leased from the city of Truth or Consequences.

Ideas was also paid a few million dollars to design a 5,000 square-foot on-site Welcome Center at the Spaceport. The architectural designs include interactive exhibits, a 3D theater, a restaurant and a merchandise shop.

However, the Spaceport spent so much money planning the building, they don’t have any money left to build it. Some of the exhibits have been temporarily installed in a second floor gallery of the Virgin Galactic hanger.

Because Spaceport bought equipment specifically designed for buildings it hasn’t built, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics are today unusable.

The original plans for the Spaceport called for the facility to generate enough income to be self-supporting. So they hired a marketing firm to find sponsors that would help pay the bills.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars, Anderson said the marketing firm could not locate any sponsors.

“Getting sponsors, there’s no guarantee in getting sponsors.” Anderson said.

The money spent on the Visitor’s Experience is not the only thing that caught KRQE News 13’s attention.

Even though the sprawling complex is mostly vacant, the spaceport pays $2,900,000 a year to an Albuquerque firm called Fiore Industries to provide 24/7 fire protection using specially trained firefighters. It’s enough money to fund the operation of more than 40 New Mexico volunteer fire departments for an entire year.

“From my perspective it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Lundstrom said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense if you don’t have a lot of activity in the facility.”

Anderson does not agree. She says the valuable Spaceport buildings need to be protected. And, she says, the nearest fire department is an hour away from the rural Sierra County facility.

“I personally don’t think that that’s a waste of money to have those people here protecting this facility,” Anderson said. “We have people working here…and we have tourists that come here.”

Today Spaceport firefighters spend their time training, putting out area brush fires and dealing with occasional rattlesnakes.

Because the rocket business is a bit slow these days, the Spaceport has found some unique ways to generate revenue.

For example, J. Crew rented the property for a fashion shoot, Land Rover taped a commercial, a Hollywood movie rented it for a press junket and Kawasaki launched a TV spot using the impressive runway.

The Spaceport also signed a licensing agreement with a Lady Gaga promoter for the pop star to perform at a three-day Spaceport music festival. The plan is for Lady Gaga to board a rocket ship and sing a song in space.

According to Virgin Galactic, there are over 700 ticket holders waiting for their sub-orbital flight to space. View the gallery of A-listers and notables who have purchased tickets. — According to Virgin Galactic, there are over 700 ticket holders waiting for their sub-orbital flight to space. Click to view the gallery of A-listers and notables who have purchased tickets.

“I can’t figure that one out. [Lady Gaga] is going to have a concert in a space suit? I have no idea,” Senator Munoz said. “I cannot figure out how you are going to get 50,000 fans at Spaceport America on a two-lane road to do a concert.”

Senator John Arthur Smith, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, says the Spaceport should be careful with taxpayer money.

“Given the scarcity of dollars in the state of New Mexico on our revenue side, if there was ever a time to be efficient with your dollars it should be now.” Senator John Arthur Smith said. He adds, there is no guarantee public funding will be available to the Spaceport in the future.

“I’m having a difficult time just funding streets and roads in the state of New Mexico that obviously take a higher priority in the taxpayers mind and I can’t guarantee that either.”

KRQE News 13 asked Anderson if she was aware that some members of the Senate Finance Committee didn’t think she had been careful with taxpayer’s money. She responded, “When I testify sometimes they tell me that, yes.”

When asked if she owes the public any apology for Spaceport’s expenditures Anderson said, “No I think they’ve gotten a lot for their money.”

Tagged: Spaceport America

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Don Vaccaro is a high profile kingpin in a lucrative business he won’t talk about. It’s a booming, secretive industry that impacts anyone who has ever been to a major sporting event, a pop concert or a Broadway show at the theater.

We’re talking about ticket scalping.

“[It] used to be if you wanted to buy scalped tickets you could only get them from somebody on a street corner,” John Breyault with the Washington based National Consumers League said. “Now you can go online with the click of a button you can buy resale tickets.”

After a three-month investigation, KRQE News 13 found anonymous internet firms reaping staggering profits by peddling concert and theater tickets to New Mexico consumers.

“I’ve seen estimates anywhere from $3 billion to $15 billion on the size of the secondary ticket market in the United States,” Breyault said.

Companies use names like “Ticket Liquidator”, “VIP Seats”, “Box Office Ticket Sales”. They are scalping tickets to stage events across New Mexico.

Did you want to see Jimmy Buffett when he performs in his first New Mexico concert at the Isleta Amphitheater in October? Even though tickets just went on sale, the best seats in the house are already sold out, unless you go to a scalper who will sell you a $159 ticket for $1,000.

“It just seems like an incredible ripoff.” Terry Davis with Albuquerque’s Popejoy Hall said. “The people we are talking about in this case are really out-of-state, they’re companies, they are literal corporations who are making lots of money selling tickets to people across the country literally at huge markup.”

Months before New Mexicans ever had an opportunity to buy “Book of Mormon” tickets, KRQE News 13’s investigation found out-of-state ticket brokers snatched hundreds of seats at face value and then peddled them on dozens of internet sites at exorbitant prices.

When the Broadway smash hit “Book of Mormon” premieres in Popejoy Hall in September, it will play to a packed house.

“They took essentially 600 seats off the market and took them out of reach of New Mexicans and put them out on the marketplace for a much higher price,” Davis said.

For example, an orchestra seat bought by scalpers for $156 is now marked up more than 500 percent, and sold by Ticket Office Sales for $1,000.

TicketCenter.com bought a seat from Popejoy Hall in the last row of the orchestra section for $88, marked it up 279 percent and then hawked it on the internet for $322.

GoodSeats.com boasted “Book of Mormon” tickets at a 75 percent discount, but KRQE News 13’s investigation found the website marked up its inventory as much as 400 percent.

The most expensive “Book of Mormon” seats offered by scalpers are right up front. Online ticket resellers offer seats in Popejoy’s Zone A for as much as $1,000 apiece. Though there is a catch. Zone A is the orchestra pit. There are no seats for sale in the pit where the orchestra performs. If you bought a Zone A ticket from a scalper, then you have been scammed.

KRQE News 13 found at least 20 internet sites peddling non-existent Popejoy tickets.

Some of the sites even use Albuquerque graphics designed to deceive. Davis says resellers like PopejoyHall.tickets.com and PopejoyHall.boxoffice.com are scalpers.

“I think it’s absolutely deceptive to the public if you are creating a website that looks like the box office or its purporting to be the box office or somehow associated with the box office.” Breyault said.

So how did scalpers get their hands on Popejoy’s “Book of Mormon” tickets?

Before offering tickets to the public, venues like Popejoy commonly sell seats to local community groups like the Chamber of Commerce. However, nobody noticed when out-of-state scalpers got on the group sales list and bought big blocks of tickets at face value.

For example, Michael Huey with Dream Team Tickets in California bought 116 “Book of Mormon” tickets, marked them up and sold them at inflated prices.

Ann Foust of Atlanta grabbed 454 seats. Foust and her husband own the scalper site, Amazon Tickets and Events.

Molly La Flesh snagged 50 seats for Ticket Galaxy in Connecticut. La Flesh paid Popejoy $88 for a seat in the orchestra section. An online scalper called Good Seat Tickets marked it up 160 percent and sold the ticket to KRQE News 13 for $145.

Online scalpers also commonly use bogus addresses.

The corporate office for Good Seat Tickets is listed at an address in Chandler, Arizona. However, nobody at that location had heard of them.

Who are these guys?

There is a common thread to all those websites, but you have to follow the clues.

KRQE News 13’s investigation led us to Hartford, Connecticut. That is where the corporate headquarters for one of the largest ticket brokers in the country, Ticket Network.

Run by CEO Don Vaccaro, Ticket Network and dozens of its internet affiliates resell tens of thousands of concert, sports and theater tickets nationwide.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission and the Connecticut Attorney General filed a complaint accusing Ticket Network and three affiliates of misrepresentation. The defendants settled the case after paying $1.4 million.

KRQE News 13 visited Vaccaro’s Connecticut office to ask about ticket scalping in New Mexico. A receptionist said that Vaccaro was not in the office and apologized that he wasn’t in for the day. However, KRQE News 13 found him in the parking lot. When KRQE News 13 asked Vaccaro about ticket scalping, the Ticket Network CEO said. “Get off the property right now.”

Vaccaro refused to discuss his business practices.

While Vaccaro didn’t want to talk, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepson had plenty to say about ticket network.

“The practices employed by Ticket Network were deceptive,” Jepson said. “Under Connecticut law we did an investigation and eventually settled in a way that Ticket Network was required to not use words like official, not use pictures or symbols that would suggest that they were an official site and the disclosure that they were a secondary resale market had to be prominently displayed.”

Breyault says New Mexicans are getting a raw deal.

“The resale market and scalpers are out to get tickets, as many as they can and resell them for a profit,” Breyault “And for New Mexicans, unfortunately that means you spend a lot of time online or on the phone trying to get tickets for a fair price and you can’t get access to them.”

Today, Popejoy’s inventory of “Book of Mormon” tickets are sold out. However, ticket scalpers are still selling top-dollar non-existent seats in the orchestra pit.

Davis says he is not sure how Popejoy Hall can put the scalpers out of business.

“The only way for us to shut it down is to appeal to the public and say, stop buying from them,” Davis said. “Because if you keep buying from them, they will keep selling them.”

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So how did scalpers get their hands on Popejoy’s “Book of Mormon” tickets?

Who are these guys?