SANTA FE (KRQE) – Few people have ever seen New Mexico’s supercomputer, Encanto, yet it represents a multi-million dollar taxpayer investment.

Three years ago, the Altix Ice 8200 supercomputer was kept under wraps in a high-security clean room at a guarded facility. Today, it can be found hidden away among junked chairs, discarded desks and obsolete filing cabinets.

The $11 million supercomputer is gathering dust at New Mexico’s surplus property warehouse in Santa Fe.

Former Governor Bill Richardson flaunted it and legislators poured millions of dollars into the device.

Darryl Ackley, New Mexico’s Chief Information Officer and Information Technology Cabinet Secretary, says the supercomputer is not worth much anymore.

“Zero dollars,” Ackley said. “There may be some residual value for the metals and the equipment, but as far as its value on the books, its zero dollars.”

In 2008, Encanto was one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. Now it sits abandoned in Santa Fe due to mismanagement, abuse of power and government waste.

“We couldn’t even give it away cause it is so outdated,” Governor Susana Martinez said.

The supercomputer was the brain child of Richardson. His plan was to build a supercomputing center and create high tech jobs, stimulate the economy and elevate New Mexico’s international profile.

In 2007, legislators appropriated $11 million to buy the 172 teraflop device capable of making trillions of calculations per second.

“This project invests in our future and is going to inspire new scientism, new students and new researchers,” Richardson said at the 2008 ribbon cutting.

The state created the nonprofit New Mexico Computing Applications Center to manage the hi-tech operation. Encanto’s massive hardware was installed at the Intel plant in Rio Rancho and was made available to research universities, scientists and engineers across the country.

“As news of our powerful new computer spreads, we are hearing from companies all over the U.S. who want to do business with us.” Richardson said in 2008.

However, despite all the political hype, New Mexico’s venture in the supercomputing business was a flop. Rather than generate revenue, Encanto relied on taxpayers to keep it afloat.

The annual electricity bill alone was nearly $1 million. Encanto’s energy requirements were enough to power 700 average homes for an entire year.

After Encanto went online, it created few if any new jobs and attracted virtually no paying customers. The supercomputer was so mismanaged that almost 90 percent of its computing time was given away for free.

“It’s a lot of money to waste,” Ackley said.

Once the third fastest in the world, by 2012 New Mexico’s supercomputer had slipped to 185.

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Today, the eight-year-old supercomputer is outdated and is no longer ranked. Over the last eight years, state legislators poured almost $20 million into the Encanto supercomputing operation.

“We issued a cease and desist and then said enough is enough,” Ackley said. “We’re decommissioning the machine. We unplugged it…turned it off.”

Last year, the 20-ton supercomputer was packed up, loaded in semi-tractor trailers and placed in storage.

“The investment was made and [they] thought, hey, we have a supercomputer and everything is going to go great,” Ackley said.

Ackely says operating a supercomputer takes a program that’s in it for the long term.

“I just don’t think that vision was there or if it was it wasn’t executed,” Ackley said. “It really seems like ‘buy the computer, turn it on and then we’re done’. It wasn’t run efficiently or even correctly.”

Governor Martinez agrees.

“I would characterize it as being very irresponsible and without a business plan on how the purchase of an $11 million supercomputer was going to be used and how it was going to make money,” Governor Martinez said.

Encanto was put up for sale in 2011.

“Ultimately there was just no one interested in buying the machine,” Ackley said. “The technology advances incredibly fast especially when it comes to supercomputers. You could buy a fairly comparable machine and operate it for less than this machine would take to operate.”

When KRQE News 13 asked Martinez why the venture fail she said, “You’d have to ask Bill Richardson why that failed.”

“[They] used taxpayer dollars to experiment on something that [they] just didn’t know how it was going to work,” Martinez said.

Ackely says after knowing what he knows now, it was not a good decision.

“As a computer scientist there’s the part of me that likes the aspect of a supercomputer, but as a taxpayer and as somebody who has had to see what it became and how it was operated, no it was not a good decision,” Ackley said.

Parts of the supercomputer may be donated to local universities for spare parts and small computing projects. The rest will likely be sold for scrap.

“It’s not a democrat or republican issue, it is a taxpayer issue in how irresponsible that money has been used,” Martinez said. “It was a dream, it was a boondoggle. You hope something is going to happen. Build it and they will come? It didn’t.”

SANDOVAL COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Expensive New Mexico mansions have been disappearing in Sandoval County. It’s a seemingly magical vanishing act worthy of the great Harry Houdini. However, in this case, it’s an ‘illusion’ involving bureaucratic blunders and tens of thousands of missing tax dollars.

For example, a $1.4 million luxury estate was built six years ago in rural Sandoval County. However, county records list the five-acre lot as vacant land. Because the County Assessor failed to notice the 7,500 square-foot house on the property, county tax payers lost out on tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes.

“If a property is missing from the property tax rolls everybody else’s tax bill is affected by the fact that the tax rolls are not accurate.” Taxation and Revenue Cabinet Secretary Demesia Padilla said.

According to the Assessor’s records, a home at 39 Stagecoach in the San Pedro Overlook subdivision is listed as undeveloped raw land. Owners of the $650,000, 7,600 square-foot luxury home haven’t paid property taxes on the improvements going back to 2009.

39 Stagecoach Trail, Sandia Park, NM

“To me it’s a little amazing when properties are so big and so beautiful don’t make it on the tax rolls.” Padilla said.

The property at 13 Turquoise Drive is assessed as non-residential land. When the Assessor overlooked the $320,000, 4,300 square-foot country home, taxpayers suffered the consequences.

“I feel responsible for letting that happen to begin with,” Sandoval County Assessor Tom Garcia said. “To me it’s very serious because I have an obligation to find this stuff and make sure it gets on the tax rolls.”

Garcia says the number one problem is lack of manpower.

There are more than 45,000 residential properties in Sandoval County. The Assessor’s office is responsible for appraising each one. With limited staff, Garcia says some properties inevitably fall through the cracks.

For instance, the San Pedro Overlook subdivision is a gated community in a remote corner of Sandoval County. Because of its mountain location, Garcia says appraisers haven’t visited this area in probably a dozen years.

According to Garcia, it is pretty difficult for a homeowner to not know their homes are missing from the tax rolls.

“Number one they get a notice of value every year showing what’s on the property and in this case the only thing that was on there was vacant land,” Garcia said. “If they are living in a luxury home and they know they are living in a luxury home they should have reported it.”

Retired businessman Chick Hancock built his dream house in San Pedro Overlook six years ago.

55 Creekside Trail, Sandia Park, NM

“About six months after we moved in I got my first assessment and it showed as vacant land,” Hancock said. “A year later, assessment number two comes and it shows as vacant land. So I called the Assessor’s office in Sandoval County.”

No one returned his call. So he called again and spoke with the Assessor himself.

“I was very concerned that he would say, gee its now been some time since your house was finished, and I’d end up in a striped suit breaking rocks,” Hancock said. “Instead he was very apologetic. He said ‘I am very sorry, the ball’s in our court.”

The assessor told Hancock that he would send someone out. Hancock says that was about four years ago. His 2015 property tax bill still shows the estate as vacant land.

Homeowners at 13 Turquoise Drive told a similar story. Once their custom home was completed in 2013 they made repeated calls to the Assessor to get the house appraised and on the tax rolls. Today, the lot is still listed as raw land.

13 Turquoise Drive, Sandia Park, NM

In 2009, insurance executive Ray Pratt completed construction on his Sandia Park area home. Pratt admits he did not pay attention to his tax bills and failed to notice his 7,600 square foot home was missing. He says it was an oversight and will pay the back taxes.

“The Assessor’s responsibility is to make sure his tax rolls include all of the new construction. The home owner’s responsibility is to make sure that they notify the Assessor that they have new construction,” Padilla said. “If they get their tax bill and they see that their entire home is missing, they should make a phone call to the Assessor.”

As for the missing luxury homes, Garcia says the property owners will get their houses put on the tax rolls. He said they will receive a notice of value for the next year and they should expect a bill for prior years as well.

Garcia adds, any homeowner who fails to report improvements will be subject to stiff penalties.

“We need to pay our share,” Hancock said. “But gee, after two phone calls I didn’t think I needed to do more prompting.”

When asked if in the next couple of years will every property in Sandoval County be listed on the tax rolls Garcia said, “Oh. That’s a pipe dream…but, I’m going to try my best.”

SANTA FE (KRQE) – They supplied substandard construction materials, submitted altered invoices and committed payroll violations. Now a landscaping company is part of a Department of Transportation investigation involving lucrative highway construction projects.

“We will put them out of business if we have to,” Department of Transportation Cabinet Secretary Tom Church said. “New Mexico taxpayers can’t afford to be paying for things they are not getting in return for the services. We will not tolerate or accept that type of work.”

In the last four years, landscape sub-contractor Caldon Seeding and Reclamation has worked on 28 highway department re-vegetation projects.

Every time the state builds a new bridge or improves a highway, the contractor is required by law to restore the landscape to its original appearance. Landscape contractors are hired to reclaim land disturbed in a construction zone. Compost is rototilled, the area is re-seeded and straw holds in moisture.

“It’s typically the last thing that’s done on a job,” Department of Transportation Landscape Architect Bill Hutchinson said. “[The] project is completed, everything else is out of the way and the re-vegetation occurs.”

Hutchinson says all materials that go into re-vegetation projects must meet rigorous state specifications. He says the products need to be certified and must come from an approved source.

“Our inspectors examine the materials and they count the materials that go into the job,” Hutchinson said.

Because landscape restoration is a highly specialized industry, only five New Mexico contractors have the technical expertise to do the work. Since 2012 there have been 58 statewide re-vegetation projects. Twenty-eight of those contracts were awarded to Caldon Seeding and Reclamation as the sub-contractor on the job.

For example, three years ago DOT awarded Caldon a $714,000 contract to renovate 43 acres along a stretch of newly constructed highway in San Juan County.

On-site state inspectors approved the work. However, it wasn’t until almost a year later that the DOT learned Caldon had apparently cheated on the contract.

“The sub-contractor had shorted us material in the project,” Church said. “They had not done proper wage rate payments and they had falsified documentation.”

The DOT contract called for Caldon to apply 30,000 pounds of Sustane fertilizer on the San Juan County project. However, according to investigators, Caldon shorted the state by at least 10,000 pounds of Sustane.

It’s not just fertilizer. Among the documents Caldon submitted to the DOT was an invoice for compost mulch. However, it was later learned the document was falsified. As a result, the DOT cannot account for about $26,000 worth of high-grade landscaping materials.

Caldon was also awarded $137,000 to re-vegetate 21 acres for a 2013 project in Dona Ana County along I-10.

According to the contract, Caldon was required to use a specialized blend of compost for the project. The DOT requires certified products that meet stringent specifications.

However, an invoice Caldon supplied to the state purportedly indicates the landscaping firm delivered a truck load of compost to the Las Cruces work site. However, a KRQE News 13 investigation found Caldon’s delivery truck was not carrying compost. Documents show on March 21, 2013, the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority sold Caldon 24 tons of inexpensive woodchips. It was a truck load of wood chips, not certified compost mulch, that was delivered to Las Cruces.

It is unknown if the discrepancy was a mistake or if it was intentional.

When asked can a re-seeding contractor substitute wood chips for compost mulch Hutchinson said, “It’s not acceptable that’s why it has to be composted material.”

This was not Caldon’s only infraction. According to a New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions investigation, Caldon repeatedly failed to pay its employees proper wages.

“They were claiming to pay people more than they were paying them…That’s a violation of federal and state law,” Church said.

Even though on site state inspectors are supposed to oversee and approve contractor compliance, nobody at the DOT noticed until years later that Caldon may have been cheating on re-seeding contracts.

When asked why the industry is so difficult to police Hutchinson says he doesn’t have the answer.

“I have talked with colleagues in adjacent states. Every DOT seems to struggle with this,” Hutchinson said. “It’s not concrete, it’s not asphalt, it’s not guardrail…it’s a whole different trade if you will. It’s more the landscape industry and it seems to defy control on some level.”

Earlier this year the DOT launched an investigation into landscape restoration contracts. Following that probe, the department questioned Caldon Seeding’s business integrity and honesty.

“We are putting this contractor on suspension. They have due process, which they will go through a hearing in which case we may debar them.” Church said.

The DOT is proposing a three month suspension of Caldon Seeding from participation in DOT contracts.

An administrative hearing on the allegations was held last week.

An executive with the firm, Richie Caldon, admitted to making mistakes in employee wages. He said, Caldon did have payroll problems and says they have been fixed.

As for the altered document, Caldon admitted to “an error in judgment” and said it “does look bad.”

Richie Caldon denies substituting wood chips for compost at the 2013 Las Cruces project.

Secretary Church says the DOT has a continuing investigation relating to Caldon Seeding and Reclamation.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The New Mexico Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a nearly four-year-old drunk driving case against Officer Abraham Baca.

Baca, 37, was an off-duty state police officer when he was pulled over in May 2010 for weaving out of his lane on a remote road north of Espanola. Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s deputies arrested him for aggravated DWI.

The case has taken many twists and turns.

According to Baca’s attorney Ben Ortega, this case is much bigger than a DWI case.

“The 5th amendment of the U.S. constitution and article 2, section 8 of the state constitution are at stake,” Ortega said. “If the state is successful at this, then nobody who gets tried in a lower court, like a magistrate court can feel comfortable if they’re acquitted.”

Ortega, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, is arguing double jeopardy, which bars any criminal defendant from being tried twice for the same offense. Ortega said Baca was acquitted of DWI in magistrate court.

But prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office disagree, saying a magistrate court judge dismissed the case on a technicality.

“There was no acquittal here,” said prosecutor James Grayson with the Attorney General’s Office. “What we have is a procedural termination of the trial without a determination of guilt or innocence at the defendant’s request.”

Four Years, Four Courts

In August 2010, Baca was scheduled to stand trial before Rio Arriba County Magistrate Judge Alex Naranjo. He dismissed the case when a prosecutor failed to appear at a pre-trial conference.

The state refiled, and a non-jury trial began in Naranjo’s courtroom in October 2010. However, during trial, the defense argued the state’s case and all its evidence, including testimony of arresting Rio Arriba sheriff’s Sgt. Martin Trujillo, should be excluded because prosecutors violated a rule when refiling the drunk driving charge against Baca.

Naranjo dismissed the case against Baca a second time. Ortega argued that amounts to an acquittal.

“With all their evidence excluded, the magistrate judge found my client Abraham Baca not guilty,” Ortega said.

The state appealed Naranjo’s ruling one week later in district court and won. District Court Judge Stephen Pfeffer denied the defense’s motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds, saying Naranjo dismissed the case on a procedural error, not evidentiary. Prosecutors argued Naranjo’s decision was not an acquittal.

The defense then appealed to a three-member panel in the state Court of Appeals. The judges unanimously agreed to toss the case, saying Baca was tried once and could not be tried again on the same charge.

The state appealed again, this time before the New Mexico Supreme Court.

• Read State’s Supreme Court Brief»
• Read Defense’s Supreme Court Brief»

“A legal ruling that is unrelated to factual guilt or innocence is a procedural dismissal that the state can appeal,” Grayson said of Naranjo’s decision. “There was no double jeopardy violation because there was no acquittal.”

Supreme Court Justice Richard Bosson indicated that the Judge Naranjo may have been confused about the difference between an acquittal and procedural dismissal. In New Mexico, magistrate judges are not required to have a legal background.

However, Ortega said if a trial judge makes a decision to acquit someone, that cannot be reviewed.

“If the judge makes a ruling mid-trial, whether it’s correct or not, and that ruling is in any way related to some of the evidence going to guilt or innocence, then jeopardy terminates,” Ortega said.

KRQE News 13 reached out to Naranjo and Pfeffer, both retired, for comment but have not heard back.

The Supreme Court justices can take however long they want to determine whether double jeopardy applies in Baca’s case.

If the justices decide double jeopardy does not apply, the case will be remanded to district court for trial. If that happens, Ortega said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I have to do everything in my power to prevent the government, the New Mexico state government, from undermining everyone’s double jeopardy rights, and that’s what I intend to do,” Ortega said.

Moving On

Baca resigned from state police shortly after his arrest, according to Ortega.

In September 2010, Baca had his law enforcement certification suspended for one year, put on probation for two years and ordered to ethics training, alcohol screening and eight hours of community service, according to Law Enforcement Academy Director Jack Jones.

Ironically, Baca is now a sergeant with the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office, the same agency that arrested him.

Sheriff Tommy Rodella hired him as a part-time civilian employee in the spring of 2011. By September that year, he was a full-time deputy. Baca was promoted to sergeant on October 16, 2011, in charge of the evidence room, according to a spokesman for the department.

“Abraham is a well-trained, well-versed law enforcement officer, coming from state police ranks,” Rodella said. “He has training that is invaluable to this office.”

Rodella also said he hired Baca because he had never been convicted in his DWI case.

Baca tearfully told News 13 Wednesday he wants this whole ordeal behind him.

“I just want to move on and let things die, so I can move on,” Baca said.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It’s a weapon so unusual and so dangerous that it’s illegal to sell or even own one. However, according to a KRQE News 13 investigation, some folks apparently never got the word and are openly defying the law.

They’re called switchblades, automatic knives with spring-loaded blades. Press a button on the handle and a long, sharp knife blade flips open. Switchblades are considered so dangerous, the New Mexico legislature banned them in 1963. According to Albuquerque State Police Captain “Nic” Aragon, “They’re dangerous. At the push of a button that blade can come out. … It’s that much quicker for our officers to be put in danger.”

A sudden encounter with a deadly knife is a terrifying image (think “Chinatown” and “Westside Story”). Back in the 50’s switchblades were considered the weapons of choice among gangs. Today, about 12% of all murders are committed by stabbings.

New Mexico is among 11 states nationwide that bans outright the sale and private ownership of switchblades. “The law is pretty specific. It says you can’t sell, manufacture, possess … Switchblades,” Captain Aragon says.

30-7-8. Unlawful possession of switchblades.
Unlawful possession of switchblades consists of any person, either manufacturing, causing to be manufactured, possessing, displaying, offering, selling, lending, giving away of purchasing any knife which has a blade with opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in the handle of the knife, or any knife having a blade which opens or falls or is ejected into position by the force of gravity or by any outward or centrifugal thrust or movement.
Whoever commits unlawful possession of switchblades is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.
History: 1953 Comp., § 40A-7-7, enacted by Laws 1963, ch. 303, § 7-7.

Despite the law, however, a News 13 investigation finds illegal weapons being openly peddled in the un-likeliest of places. Consider Albuquerque’s historic Old Town. The picturesque plaza draws tourists from all over the world. And whether it’s the quiet southwestern ambience or the unique shopping, Old town is a tourist mecca. Sure, you can find turquoise jewelry, distinctive pottery and handmade weavings there. But the last thing you would ever think of finding in Old Town would be illegal knives.

The Covered Wagon Trading Post has been an Old Town fixture on the southwest corner of the Plaza for more than 50 years. The quaint curio shop features everything from inexpensive trinkets to fine Native American art. But stroll through the crowded store, past the coffee mugs and the refrigerator magnets, and you’ll come to a treasure trove of illegal weapons: Hundreds of automatic knives.

In a KRQE News 13 undercover investigation, we found the Covered Wagon openly selling banned switchblades in four crowded display cases. The curio shop sold switchblades for as little as $14.99. All of the contraband weapons are made in China and advertised as “Super Knife.” A Covered Wagon sales clerk told News 13’s undercover investigator, the knives are “legal.”

News 13 later met with the store owner who declined to give his name. When asked whether switchblades are legal, the owner replied, “We buy them legally. … If they’re able to buy them I guess we’re able to sell them if they wholesale them and we buy them wholesale.”

The Covered Wagon owner admitted he did not know about the law banning automatic knives.

We showed him State Statute 30-7-8 which is titled ‘Unlawful Possession of Switchblades’. “I didn’t know that until you brought this to my attention…I’m going to pull them right off the shelf because … I’m not allowed to sell them when it’s against the law,” the store owner told News 13.

The Covered Wagon has been selling illegal knives for about 20 years and, according to the owner, no one had told him it was against the law. He directed his staff to immediately remove all the automatic knives from display.

Captain Aragon said the State Police would visit the Covered Wagon to make sure the illegal knives are no longer being peddled to the public. “If we find out that they continue to sell those we definitely will move forward with charging them with violating that statute,” Captain Aragon said.

A switchblade knife purchased by News 13 as part of our investigation has been turned over to the State Police.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It’s a case study in deceptive business practices that one federal official calls, “A travesty. Outrageous and unreasonable.”

A seven month long News 13 investigation uncovers a cold-hearted health insurance scandal complete with reckless blunders, secret deals and bizarre billings. If you thought health insurance will always protect you from catastrophic medical costs, think again.

Just ask Brett and Sara Janos.

Brett is an immigration attorney. Sara just graduated from medical school. They became unwitting victims November 6th last year when Sara gave birth to triplets. A joyous event was overshadowed by heartbreak when the Janos triplets were born prematurely in critical condition.

From their first breaths, Wyatt, Dustin and Riley struggled to stay alive at Lovelace Women’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Brett Janos recalls, “I was in another world. (It was) very hard actually seeing them there, pound and a half each and hooked up to a machine.”

Wyatt died within just a few days. Three weeks later, his brother Dustin passed away on Thanksgiving. “He was just critical. We ended up staying the whole Thanksgiving and that evening he kind of gave up,” Brett said.

Riley lived, but stayed in intensive care for an additional four months. Today he is home but Riley will likely face medical challenges the rest of his life. The triplet’s medical bills totaled $3,862,312.

But this is why we have health insurance.

You pay your monthly premium, the out of pocket and deductible, and then the insurance company picks up the rest. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, right? Brett and Sara Janos bought their policy from Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico (BCBSNM). The health insurance company explained in some detail all the things its policy would cover. However, there are exceptions Blue Cross Blue Shield does not talk about.

Brett and Sara discovered the reality of health insurance shortly after Dustin died. Just one month after the triplets were born, the couple started receiving incomprehensible invoices from health care organizations they’d never heard of. There were tens of thousands of dollars in billings. “As far as bills that are stacked on my desk, there’s still probably over $30,000 in bills. I don’t know what one to pay. Every time we are put in collections we’re given an amount that doesn’t match any of the bills,” Brett Janos said in June.

To understand where all those strange bills were coming from you have to understand Lovelace Hospital’s billing practices. For example, doctors at the Lovelace Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, NICU, treated the Janos triplets. However, even though those physicians work at the NICU, they don’t actually work for Lovelace. It’s part of a secret business deal orchestrated by Lovelace to use contract doctors to staff its NICU. Technically, the physician’s work for a Florida company called Sheridan Healthcare and it was Sheridan that billed Brett and Sara for tens of thousands of dollars in doctor’s fees.

Brett and Sara had never heard of Sheridan Healthcare and no one told them the doctors treating the triplets were not employed by Lovelace Hospital.

When Brett asked Blue Cross Blue Shield to explain the more than $20,000 in Sheridan billings, a claims adjuster told him, “You are responsible for everything.” BCBSNM said even though the Lovelace doctors work in New Mexico, their employer, Sheridan, is out of state. Because the doctor’s paychecks come from Florida, BCBSNM explained, the physician’s services are out-of-network. Out-of-network means Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico won’t pick up the tab. All the Sheridan bills were dumped on Brett and Sara Janos.

“After I found out that things were out of network and I was responsible for it, I couldn’t afford it. That’s one reason I stopped paying. If I’m responsible for $30,000, we don’t have that,” Brett told News 13. And when Brett and Sara didn’t pay, Sheridan turned the bills over to a collection agency.

Brett says it never occurred to him that the doctors who were trying to save the lives of his children might be out-of-network. “It doesn’t cross your mind, especially in an emergency situation. Our kids are rushed in there and they are trying to resuscitate them and trying to get them stable and we’re going to have a talk with the doctor and say who do you work for?”

The New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance launched an investigation. “The insured assumes that when they go to a hospital that Blue Cross sponsors that everything that goes on in that hospital is covered by Blue Cross. That was not the case in this case,” Superintendent of Insurance John Franchini said, adding “It’s wrong. It should not be happening. We should not allow that. We will try to stop it.”

To file an insurance complaint, go to the NM Office of the Superintendent of Insurance’s website

The tens of thousands of dollars in bills Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico refused to cover were devastating to the Janos family. “We’re trying to battle all this and still we know these bills are coming in. No one knows where they are coming from. We later find out we are responsible for them and we get harassing phone calls on top of that, even while we are in the NICU,” Brett Janos says.

And, it’s not just bills from Sheridan. When Riley needed delicate eye surgery at Presbyterian Hospital, BCBSNM stuck Brett and Sara with thousands of dollars in doctor’s bills. And when Riley needed hearing aids at UNMH, BCBSNM initially denied the coverage but later changed its mind and covered the bills.

Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham reviewed the Janos case. She told News 13, “Patients have no way of knowing what’s really covered, what isn’t covered, who’s in network, who’s out of network and the fact that this family and many others have to use a spreadsheet to figure out what’s been billed (and) what they pay, is outrageous.”

A spokesperson for Lovelace Health System would not discuss its business relationship with the Florida based Sheridan Healthcare. Neither Lovelace CEO Ron Stern nor Lovelace Chief Financial Officer Stephen Forney would return repeated calls for comment. Sheridan Healthcare also did not respond to questions about its business relationship with Lovelace.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico Chief of Staff Janice Torres calls the Janos case, “incredibly complex.” She admits BCBSNM made mistakes and incorrectly processed claims. She said BCBSNM would fix the errors and pay all outstanding claims.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico CEO Kurt Shipley did not return our phone calls for comment. We caught up with Shipley recently at a public meeting. We asked him if he felt the Janos family was owed an apology. Shipley responded, “I don’t have a personal apology to say to anybody on camera. Period. I don’t have anything to say on camera because it’s a privacy issue.”

Kurt Shipley did tell News 13 he is not aware of any outstanding claims in the Janos case. However, that’s news to Brett and Sara who are still being hounded by Lovelace Health System, Sheridan Healthcare and collection agencies for unpaid medical billings Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico won’t cover.

According to New Mexico’s Superintendent of Insurance John Franchini, “It is a tremendous tragedy and I feel so sorry for this family. I am very upset about the fact there is no transparency, there is no openness or communication like it should have been with this (health insurance) policy.”

Congresswoman Lujan Grisham adds, “We are not holding the insurance companies accountable for providing coverage. They are supposed to cover these bills. That’s their risk, right? You could get sick, they have to pay. And if they are finding exceptions then something is wrong with the entire system of insurance coverage and that means we in Congress have to do something.”

When asked how all this will end, Brett Janos replied, “I don’t know Larry. I do not know.”

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ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – The list reads like a who’s who of the criminal underworld. The Department of Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Greg Fouratt calls what’s happened, “A dangerous situation.” An eight-month News 13 investigation uncovers a public safety debacle that allows fugitive felons to beat the system, many for years and some of decades.

State Representative Bill Rehm calls the system breakdown, “A joke and the criminal knows there’s no follow through.”

Beating the System

As an example, consider the case of accused felon Hosam Abed. In 2011, while awaiting trial on a string of violent felonies including attempted murder, Abed skipped out on his $25,000 bail bond and disappeared. After he fled, the judge in his case was authorized to order the $25,000 in bail money be forfeited to the court. That’s how bail bonds work: Skip court and you lose your bail. However, instead of forfeiting Abed’s bond, the judge simply looked the other way. The bail bond was never forfeited and Hossam Abed is still on the lam.

The Abed case is not an isolated one. A News 13 review of hundreds of court documents shows district court judges rarely forfeit bonds of fleeing fugitives. In fact, our investigation finds, in the past four years, Albuquerque district court judges have only forfeited the bonds of nine fugitives. Just nine.

The state legislature gives the courts authority to forfeit bail bonds in cases where defendants fail to appear for court. However, under the statute, bail bond forfeiture is not mandatory. Legislators allowed some discretion to the court by using the word “may” when it comes to forfeiting bonds.

After being indicted on drug trafficking charges. Ulise Leyva skipped court in 2005 and disappeared. The judge in Leyva’s case disregarded his $17,500 bail bond and let it slide. Leyva remains a fugitive today and his bail bond was never revoked.

Derrick Davis was facing a series of violent felonies, including false imprisonment and battery, when he fled in 2008. Rather than forfeit Davis’ $2,500 bond, the judge simply let the matter drop. Davis is still listed as a fugitive from justice.

In 1992 James Andrews was indicted for criminal sexual contact with a 12-year-old. After he posted a $5,000 bail bond to get out of jail, the accused felon disappeared. The judge did not forfeit the $5,000 bond. Andrews has been a fugitive for 23 years.

When accused drug trafficker Rogelio Dias skipped out on his $20,000 bond, the judge let the fugitive defendant off the hook by failing to forfeit his bail bond.

‘It’s Not About The Money’

DPS Secretary Fouratt says this issue is not about the money. “A person charged with a felony who has bonded out and blown off the court, taken off, skipped town, whatever, represents a danger to the community that is substantially greater than the average person with whom a law enforcement officer is interacting.”

A bail bond is like an insurance policy. To get out of jail, you post a bond and promise to show up for court. If you skip town before trial however, then you’ll be facing an arrest warrant and the loss of all the bail money. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Secretary Fouratt says, “If that is not being done then the bail bond itself, that contract is, from a public safety perspective an empty promise because it provides false comfort, false assurance to the court and frankly to the public.”

Typically, defendants hire bail-bonding companies to get out of jail pending court. The bail bond agent then must ensure the defendant shows up for trial. However, if the accused criminal disappears in the dead of night, the bonding agent is on the hook for the full amount of the bond unless they can hunt the defendant down and bring them back.

Dangerous, Risky Business

According to Gerald Madrid, President of the Bail Bond Association of New Mexico, “We try everything that is legal to make contact with that person, especially if they are hiding from us, find them, arrest them and bring them back in. Especially on the larger bonds because that money I had pledged to the court is at risk now. I’m at risk of losing that money whatever that amount might be.”

In cases where a defendant has jumped bail, most bonding companies will hire bounty hunters to find them.

“It is a dangerous risky business. Getting them out of jail is the easy part. The tracking them, getting them into court, especially when they know they are facing time in prison or time in the county jail, its tough,” Madrid says.

“We have a person charged with a felony who has looked a judge in the eye and promised to show up, convince the bail bond company that he’s a good security risk and has then bonded out of jail and despite all his promises has taken off. The forfeiture provision incentivizes the bail bond company to go look for him because there is no entity nor any person more incentivized to locate and apprehend this now fugitive than the person who has promised $5,000, or $20,000 or $100,000 if the person doesn’t show up,” Secretary Fouratt says.

State Representative Bill Rehm, who is also a retired Sheriff’s Deputy, is critical of Judges who do not forfeit bonds of fugitives. “The individual has guaranteed his appearance based on the bond and then fails to appear and the courts take no action for that failure,” Rehm says.

Judge Nan Nash is Chief Judge of the 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque. When asked why Judges don’t forfeit bonds, Judge Nash replied, “The Judges do not find that forfeiting bonds makes it more likely that the defendant will return or be brought back to face the charges that they are accused of. We want them to return to court to answer to the charges that are pending against them.”

Judge Nash said she does not believe that forfeiting bail bonds accomplishes the goal of getting a defendant back in court. However, the Judge adds, the 2nd district court judges do plan to take a look at this issue.

“You can rest well assured that when you do a story about the court, it occasions some discussion among the Judges. We do think, ok are we doing it the right way,” Judge Nash says.

SANTA FE (KRQE) – A News 13 review of state payroll records finds a mid-level state bureaucrat padding his time cards every day for four years. As a result, he ended up pocketing more than $62,000 in unsubstantiated, dubious payments.

Mike Carrillo is currently the Deputy Human Resources Manager at the Aging and Long Term Services Department in Santa Fe and practically every one of Carrillo’s bi-weekly time cards reflects obvious red flags. However, nobody noticed.

In fact, despite all the checks and balances in state government, no one questioned Mike Carrillo’s time. Not three cabinet secretaries. Not the eagle eyed bean counters at the Department of Finance and not the human resources folks at the State Personnel Office.

According to New Mexico’s State Personnel Director, “This is not something we would have caught in our normal course of business. This is a unique situation that occurred and it is not common practice.”

Who is Mike Carrillo?

After a long career at the Department of Corrections, Carrillo retired in 2002 and started drawing his PERA pension which today totals $77,484 a year. But his life of leisure was short lived. Four years later in 2006, Mike Carrillo was back working in state government, this time as a $60,542 a year employee at the state Aging and Long Term Services Department.

Because Carrillo returned to work before the state legislature prohibited double dipping, Mike Carrillo is allowed to collect both his PERA retirement as well as his state paycheck from his new job. And, even though Mike Carrillo’s job at ALTSD is a full-time position, the newly hired human resources specialist was allowed to set his own schedule.

Carrillo decided he only wanted to work part-time. He scheduled himself to be at his desk at 7:30 am and leave for the day four hours later at 11:30 am.

ALTSD Cabinet Secretary Myles Copeland admits Carrillo did not work full-time. When asked why, Secretary Copeland, who was hired this summer, said, “That’s a great question Larry and not one I have a great answer. I believe … that former cabinet secretary’s had made that decision. Its not one we should have made.”

State Personnel Director Justin Najaka says he is “very concerned” about Carrillo’s part-time status. “The agency has indicated by having a full-time position that there is a full 40 hours worth of work to do by that employee,” Najaka says. “An employee in a full time position should be at their work station working the full 40 hours,” Najaka adds.

And Mike Carrillo’s part-time status is not the only questionable decision at Aging and Long Term Services.

A Few Extra Hours

Beginning in January 2011, Carrillo started padding his time card. Every day for four years he bumped up his time card a few extra hours. Some days it might be 1-½ hours, sometimes 2 hours and occasionally more. In one pay period in 2014, Mike Carrillo claimed to have worked 30 extra hours. State employees who work extra hours are compensated straight time as opposed to overtime, which is paid at time and a half.

State regulations require documentation for any extra time worked. However, Mike Carrillo failed to justify a single minute of the more than 1,800 hours he claimed as extra time. And even though nobody at ALTSD knew what he did to earn all that money, no one questioned hundreds of dubious discrepancies contained on his time sheets.

Justin Najaka explains that any employee who wants to work extra hours must first have a supervisor’s authorization on a case-by-case basis.

When asked if Mike Carrillo supplied documentation for his extra hours, Secretary Copeland said, “There was not documentation.”

Secretary Copeland was one of several supervisors who approved Carrillo’s time. “I was operating on the belief that he was working the amount of time he said he was,” Copeland said.

How did Mike Carrillo get paid so much for so long without anyone raising a red flag? News 13 has learned it was a payroll scheme approved four years ago by a previous ALTSD cabinet secretary. The approval is contained in a string of emails obtained by News 13.

Four Years, Pay Goes Unchecked

On August 1, 2011 Mike Carrillo sent a “Good Morning Boss” email to then ALTSD Cabinet Secretary Retta Ward. In the communication Carrillo asked for additional compensation because he spends “a lot of hours in the afternoon responding to emails” and answering phone calls. Carrillo wrote, “If you do not want me to continue to respond, please let me know and I will not include these hours on my time sheet…”

A few hours later, Secretary Ward responded, “I do want you to continue with these activities.”

Armed with cabinet level blanket approval Mike Carrillo racked up tens of thousands of dollars in extra hours yet none of the extra time was documented as required by state rules.

Over the next four years Secretary Ward routinely approved Mike Carrillo’s time cards without question. After Ward left to take over the Department of Health, ALTSD Secretary Gino Rinaldi approved Carrillo’s time cards.

Myles Copeland also signed-off on Carrillo’s extra time. When asked whether he had knowledge of Carrillo actually working those extra hours, Copeland responded, “I believed that he was but I did not know.”

Personnel Director Najaka says blanket permission to work unlimited extra hours without substantiation is “totally inappropriate.”

“It’s important that cabinet secretary’s not authorize this type of blanket approval, and if they have, that practice should stop,” Najaka said.

Mike Carrillo did not return any of News 13’s repeated phone calls for comment. A News 13 Producer caught up with the ALTSD employee at his Santa Fe office. He declined to explain his time cards and said; “I don’t think you guys are fair in your stories so I have nothing to say.”

Following News 13’s four-month investigation, Secretary Copeland pulled the plug on Mike Carrillo’s sweet deal. Carrillo was directed to work a full 40-hour week and any overtime will have to be approved in advance and documented.

“We want folks to have confidence in our systems so we’ve changed that so that it’s not anymore him simply claiming he’s working extra hours. Now we know because he does it here in the office,” Copeland told News 13.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It involves fire trucks and ambulances, craps tables and slot machines. Its a public safety dilemma that one elected official calls “terrible, an awful situation.” And the situation costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

A four-month KRQE News 13 Investigation finds two Native American Pueblos in Bernalillo County have failed to compensate the county for public safety services that include police, fire and rescue.

Over the past 3 years there have been more than 1,200 Bernalillo County EMS calls to Sandia Pueblo, many of those to the tribal casino. 911 records show in a typical month EMS responders are dispatched to Sandia Pueblo practically every day. Some days fire and rescue units have been dispatched multiple times. In June, Bernalillo County made 57 emergency rescue calls to the pueblo. However, even though it costs the county about $700 every time EMT’s are dispatched, Sandia Pueblo refuses to pay for those services.

It’s the same story for police protection.

In the last 3 years, Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies have been dispatched to Sandia Pueblo more than 2,000 times for everything from traffic accidents to assaults and fights. None of the Bernalillo County emergency callouts to tribal land are compensated.

“What’s going on is that Bernalillo County is in essence subsidizing the pueblo, in particular, the casinos,” Commissioner Wayne Johnson says.

According to Bernalillo County Deputy Manager Tom Swisstack, the cost of providing police, fire and rescue services to Sandia Pueblo’s casino alone is as much as $180,000 a year. “I don’t think (we) are in a position to do this for an indefinite period of time. So (the county) really cannot afford to continue to do that,” Swisstack tells News 13.

Public Safety Is Not Free

Public safety is something we take for granted. Get burglarized, the police will show up. Is a house on fire? Firefighters will put it out. Have a heart attack? EMTs will be there to save your life. But, public safety is not free. Firefighters don’t bill you for putting out a blaze and the police won’t send an invoice when they catch the guy who stole your car. It doesn’t work that way. We pay for police, fire and EMS services when we pay property and gross receipts taxes.

However, not all Bernalillo County property owners pay property taxes. Native American pueblos are sovereign nations and are exempt from paying property taxes. As a result thousands of county emergency call-outs to tribal land have gone uncompensated.

“Do I think its right? Absolutely not. They’re not paying for anything. They’re not paying taxes into the county, they’re not supporting the services that they are receiving,” says Commissioner Johnson.

Tom Swisstack, who oversees public safety for Bernalillo County says, “We’re taking people out of pocket for a period of time whether it’s an hour, two hours, whether its 30 minutes. And we are reallocating them to (pueblo land). If there was to be a crisis within the Bernalillo County unincorporated areas itself, that puts a strain on those resources.”

Over the years, Sandia Pueblo’s tribal leaders have rejected county requests for emergency response compensation. And, it’s not likely a money issue. In the last quarter Sandia’s casino took in more than $40 million dollars from slot machines alone.

Neither Sandia Pueblo Lieutenant Governor Stuart Paisano nor Governor Issac Lujan would return our repeated calls for comment. However, News 13 has learned Sandia Pueblo’s tribal leaders have recently begun preliminary discussions with Bernalillo County to hammer out a resolution.

“Governor Lujan has actually shown a strong interest in trying to work out a memo of understanding. So for the longest time we haven’t been compensated. Now there’s dialogue. I think the Governor realizes the importance of public safety for his people as well as the people that are going to the casinos,” says Tom Swisstack.

No Public Safety Agreement

Laguna Pueblo’s Route 66 Casino Hotel is located at the western edge of Bernalillo County. Over the last three years the county has dispatched fire and rescue units to Route 66 Casino Hotel more than 200 times for everything from heart attacks to gunshot wounds. In the same period, Sheriffs’ deputies responded to more than 340 emergency calls at the casino. County vehicles responding to emergencies at the remote casino on the Laguna Reservation are out of service for at least an hour and often more.

According to Tom Swisstack, the county’s emergency services dispatched to Route 66 Casino Hotel are uncompensated. Swisstack says the last time the county met with Laguna’s tribal leaders was two years ago and no agreement could be reached. Last quarter, Route 66 Casino Hotel took in more than $22 million dollars from slot machines alone.

Laguna Pueblo Governor Virgil Siow did not respond to a News 13 request for comment.

Deputy County Manager Swisstack says compensation or not, emergency responders will continue to respond to calls for help anywhere in Bernalillo County. “The fact is when somebody is injured or there’s a life threatening situation we, by our code of conduct, have to respond to those areas,” Swisstack says.

Isleta Pueblo, which is also in Bernalillo County, does have a current public safety agreement with Bernalillo County.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Nobody in their right mind would ever want to live next door to these most notorious addresses in Albuquerque.

Plain and simple, 318 Mesilla St NE is a dump. It’s a junkyard in a residential neighborhood. The house is rundown; there are abandoned cars, rusting trucks and trailers, weeds, litter, trash and debris.

Across town in the Cielito Lindo neighborhood is a quiet residential street lined with attractive homes however there’s one exception, a corner house at 4112 Tara Dr. NE. Scattered throughout the sprawling property are a half dozen derelict cars, worn out tires, barbeque grills, neglected landscaping, and a jumbled mess of trash and debris.

One thing that sticks out is the connection between the two Albuquerque properties. It’s time to meet the homeowners.

Diane Gallegos owns the house on Tara. Her adult son John owns the Mesilla residence.

• See photos from the two properties »

The Homeowners

Diane and John Gallegos are compulsive hoarders. They acquire excessive amounts of junk and have an unwillingness to get rid of it. In fact, the residence on Mesilla is so packed with junk that John Gallegos doesn’t actually live there. He simply uses the property to store all the rubble he accumulates.” John Gallegos hasn’t lived here in more than 20 years. “The house is abandoned,” says Jim Mondloch who lives across the street.

Over the past 20 years Diane and John Gallegos have been slapped with countless criminal complaints, inspections, violation notices, investigations, court orders, jail time and fines. However, the city has been unable to get mother and son to stop trashing the neighborhood with their compulsive hoarding. When it comes to zoning violations, Diane and John Gallegos are public enemies’ number one and two.

“We have to drive by this eyesore every day. It’s very discouraging,” Jim Mondloch says. “It’s been a mess for the last 20 years. (John Gallegos) has trashed out the property. The city has come in to clean it up and he reverts back to his old habits. Just as soon as he cleans it up, he starts over again,” Mondloch adds.

“We’re outraged because we have a continual problem on these properties,” says Albuquerque Associate Planning Director Brennon Williams. “We’re doing everything we can from both a criminal standpoint as well as a civil standpoint to bring about continued compliance for both of these properties. It’s frustrating,” Williams says.

The Junkyard Houses History

Since 1994, the mother son duo has been hauled into court at least 11 times for persistent zoning, health and safety violations. There have been at least 11 criminal complaints, 22 city inspections, 15 violation notices, 36 citizen complaints and 2 injunctions. Sometimes John and Diane Gallegos are ordered to pay small fines. Sometimes they get off with a slap on the wrist. However despite years of non-compliance nobody has been able to get the attention of the ‘nightmare neighbors’.

“Neighbors should not have to endure this for 20 years,” says Albuquerque City Attorney Jessica Hernandez. “It’s frustrating that the Gallegos will do just enough to get the court or the city off of their backs for the moment and then just go right back to what they’ve been doing. We know now that’s the way they operate,” Hernandez says.

In 2005, city officials had had enough. Armed with a court order, city inspectors with the Safe Cities Strike Force raided the property on Mesilla. Inspectors found every room in the house stuffed floor to ceiling with trash. Practically every square inch was crammed with discarded appliances, 55-gallon drums and garbage. Inspectors also discovered a family of pigs living in a small crawl space in the back of the house. That was ten years ago.

Today, the homes of Mesilla and Tara are still littered with abandoned vehicles and truckloads of trash and debris. John and Diane Gallegos continue to thumb their nose at the law, city hall, judges and neighbors.

Diane Gallegos’ property on Tara is in City Councilor Trudy Jones’ district. “What I hear from constituents is that it’s affecting their life. It’s affecting their daily lives. You can imagine, you wake up every morning and go outside and you see a junk yard,” Councilor Jones says. “People who have no intention of ever obeying laws who don’t think they ever have to work within the system will always find a way to create a property like this,” she adds.

Now, the antics of mother and son have caught the attention of Albuquerque’s Mayor, “It’s just got to end. We’re gonna have to throw the book at (them),” Mayor Berry says.

“Its just a dang shame that these neighbors have had to put up with this for all these years,” the Mayor tells News 13. “I know we’ve tried for decades. We haven’t gotten there for the neighbors; we haven’t gotten there for the community. I’ve made it very clear to my legal department, fix this dag gone thing once and for all,” Mayor Berry says.

Two weeks ago the City Attorney’s office filed a civil complaint in State District Court relating to the properties on Tara and Mesilla. The city seeks a permanent injunction and asks the court, “… for authority to go on to the property, do whatever needs to be done to clean up the property and then bill the Gallegos. And if they don’t pay it, put a lien against their property for that amount so the city and the taxpayers do not have to pay for the cost of that cleanup,” City Attorney Hernandez says.

“The city has made honest efforts in the past to get this thing taken care of. It has not worked. We are going to ramp it up in a big way if the courts will let us do that. But we are also going to stop the outflow of your tax dollars to keep handling the same situation over and over again,” according to Mayor Berry.

No Comment

Over the past decade News 13 has repeatedly reached out to both John Gallegos and Diane Gallegos about the numerous zoning violations. Both mother and son have refused comment. Last week Diane Gallegos was back in Metro Court on a new criminal complaint. When she showed up without an attorney, Judge Vidalia Chavez granted a continuance. On her way out of court, Diane Gallegos did not respond to News 13’s request for comment.

Neighbor Jim Mondloch says, “We want the city to clean this property up and have it cleaned up for good (with) a permanent solution. (John Gallegos) is compulsive. The city cannot control him. He’ll come back and, as he’s done before, he’ll bring all the junk back in piece by piece again. That’s his way of operating.”

In October the City of Albuquerque filed another criminal complaint against John Gallegos relating to his property on Mesilla. When Gallegos failed to appear for his bond arraignment, Judge Maria Dominguez issued a bench warrant for his arrest. Gallegos has not been arrested on that warrant and remains a fugitive today.

Read the Complaint to Abate Continuing Zoning Code (click to see full size)

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – KRQE News 13 is revisiting some of the best investigations by Larry Barker. They focus on everything from vanishing acts to missing criminals and tickets gone crazy.

13 Investigates: Bosses caught embezzling employee money – This story was first brought to you in February. Dozens of workers are angry after they found out they were being paid with their own money, money that their bosses had been stealing from them. Larry Barker caught those bosses red-handed and got action from the state.

Hairy deal: Albuquerque beauty school caught faking student transcripts – In April, Larry Barker uncovered an Albuquerque college that is putting graduates into the workplace that have no business graduating. Larry’s two-month investigation found documentation that an expensive school was fudging records to get students out the door quickly.

Undercover Investigation: Lies, local sales and city incompetence – Anasazi secret: We’ve all seen those going out of business sale signs that never seem to come down and wondered to ourselves; how can they do that? And is that even legal? Well in February of this year, News 13’s Larry Barker zeroed in on one of those stores in a six-month long undercover investigation. And the owner made a big mistake, he lied to Larry Barker.

Online ticket scalpers steal the show from New Mexicans – Concerts, musicals, and plays, New Mexicans are getting gouged by scalpers gobbling up huge blocks of tickets before you even have a chance to buy them. So how can this happen? Well in May Larry Barker showed us how it is being done. The KRQE News 13 investigation spent months following the trail to expose who’s behind it and how they get away with it.

Missing appraisals: A New Mexico county’s costly blunder – They’re some of the mansions of New Mexico and they’re hard to miss. But they may as well be invisible because the government didn’t even know these palaces existed. But KRQE News 13’s Larry Barker did and his investigation in July of this year revealed a mind-boggling blunder.

More of Larry Barker’s 2015 investigations can be found here »

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)

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.

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.

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+.

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-.

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+.

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.

ALCALDE, N.M. (KRQE) – One high-ranking elected official calls it, “a prime example of a project gone wrong.”

A former state senator says its, “a major waste of state funds.” And the man responsible for overseeing the pricey project says, “it’s a total loss. It should never have existed.”

It’s a multi-million dollar compound surrounded by a low wall and locked gate. There’s no sign so most tourists who take the scenic route to Taos on Highway 68 drive right on by. Just as you cruise by Alcalde, glance to the right and you’ll get a hint to what this publicly funded project is all about.

An Empty $2M Visitor Center

Rising above the northern New Mexico prairie stands a larger-than-life bronze statue of a Spanish Conquistador. Nearby is an ornate 7,500 square foot Spanish colonial building. Welcome to the Oñate Monument and Visitor Center. But don’t look for any visitors today, or any day for that matter because tourists haven’t visited for years. In fact, the last time a crowd gathered there was the monument’s dedication ceremony more than two decades ago.

So there it sits on the side of a rural two-lane highway, locked and empty. The only reminder of a public memorial is the imposing statue, a deserted parking lot and a vacant building. Today, it represents not a place of art, history and culture, but rather a monument to waste, backdoor politics and a reckless abuse of power. It’s a case study in governmental misconduct and it shows how New Mexico elected politicians squandered more than $2 million.

“It just was built and there it was. That was the end of it. (A) complete bust. It never functioned according to the original purpose,” says Dr. Robert McGeagh, a retired history professor and the Oñate Monument’s first project director.

Captain Juan de Oñate

To understand the Oñate project you have to go all the way back to the 16th century. In 1598 the Spanish Conquistador, Captain Juan de Oñate, forded the Rio Grande, rode into the northern frontier, claimed the territory for Spain and named himself Nuevo Mexico’s first colonial governor.

While some historians view Oñate as an important European explorer, others view him as a ruthless overlord. In an attempt to control the native pueblo population, Oñate committed unspeakable atrocities including senseless murders, the slavery of women and children, and the amputation of the right foot of 80 Acoma Pueblo men.

Fast forward to modern times to Rio Arriba County’s legendary political boss and State Senator, Emilio Naranjo.

In 1991, Naranjo wanted to honor the controversial Spanish Conquistador in a grandiose way. He proposed a taxpayer-funded monument dedicated to Hispanic history and culture and promised that the world-class center would bolster tourism and the economy. There would be a museum, a visitor center and a majestic statue.

Over the course of the next 15 years Senator Naranjo singlehandedly convinced legislative colleagues to fund his pet project. Through a series of legislative initiatives including several Capital Outlay appropriations, state legislators funneled more than $1,300,000 tax dollars into what would be the Oñate Monument and Visitor Center. It was to be erected in Senator Naranjo’s Rio Arriba County district.

Rio Arriba County chipped in another $700,000 or so in construction and operating funds (including $5000 to Emilio Naranjo to “negotiate” with then Congressman Bill Richardson about federal participation in the project). The U.S. Small Business Administration topped off the funding with a $375,000 check.

Renowned New Mexico sculptor Reynaldo “Sonny” Rivera was tapped to create the project centerpiece, a $120,000, 12-foot tall bronze statue of Juan de Oñate mounted on a noble steed.

The Oñate statue was unveiled at a 1993 dedication ceremony attended by hundreds of local residents. Governor Bruce King kicked off the celebration with welcoming remarks. Then Congressman Bill Richardson addressed the crowd in Spanish. But, it was Senator Emilio Naranjo who was the star that day.

In prepared remarks, Naranjo said, “In northern New Mexico and the United States of America it is a great honor to give thanks to Juan de Oñate,” The crowd cheered and chanted, “Viva Don Juan de Oñate. Viva Emilio Naranjo.”

When you add it all up, taxpayers shelled out an estimated $2.4 million for a statue, an ornate building, and staff to run it. The only thing the project lacked was visitors.

You see, the county and state politicians spent all that money building this place but then lost interest in the center. No one had bothered to draw up a business plan for the center detailing how the monument would draw tourists or boost the economy.

In addition, just a few months before the center was opened (April 1994), a newly elected Rio Arriba County Commission ousted its long time County Manager Emilio Naranjo. After Naranjo left no one in the county seemed to have much interest in the project. A few years after opening, the center was quietly shut down.

A Pork Barrel Project

Project director Robert McGeagh said the Oñate Monument never operated as its intended purpose, which was a Hispanic cultural center.

In fact, the only notable event to occur during the monument’s brief operation was an act of sabotage. Sometime during the night in January 1998, unknown vandals severed the statue’s right foot as a symbolic protest to Oñate’s brutality. The statue’s original sculptor, “Sonny” Rivera, re-cast a replacement foot that cost taxpayers another $10,000.

Since the Oñate Monument closed, the property has been leased to a variety of tenants: A Montessori school, a charter school, a weekend flea market and, currently, the center to home to a part-time Yoga studio.

“It was a pork barrel project that got its approval based on politics and not based on, in my opinion, (any) benefit to the state,” says former State Senator Bill Davis (R-Albuquerque). Davis was one of the few members of the 1991 legislature to oppose funding the Oñate Monument.

“This particular Oñate project is a prime example of a project that was driven by political considerations,” Davis tells News 13. The former state senator added, “People voting for it were driven not by the benefit to the state but by benefit to their personal interest.”

“That money was wasted,” says State Senator Pete Campos (D-Las Vegas). Senator Campos, who also served in the 1991 legislature, has been an outspoken critic of the legislative process that funds capital outlay projects, not based on priorities, but rather politics.

“Resources have gone to projects that don’t serve the public need. What we are seeing are empty buildings, statues, parks and other things like this where the resources have been put to bad use,” Senator Campos says.

And, the Oñate Monument is not the only project where public money has been squandered.

“The state of New Mexico is spending hundreds of millions of dollars too often on non-essential items like doggie drinking fountains, statues (and) sculpture gardens instead of essential needs like water systems and roads and bridges,” says Fred Nathan who heads up the non-partisan think tank, Think New Mexico.

Nathan says it’s time to take the politics out of New Mexico’s legislative capital outlay system. According to Nathan, New Mexico is the only state in the country that uses a political formula for distributing dollars for public infrastructure projects. Nathan told KRQE News 13, “Last year every state senator received a million dollars and every state house member received $600,000 to spend in their near total discretion.”

“There’s billions of dollars of need out there for urgently needed critical public infrastructure projects that aren’t getting funded so we can fund these more political projects,” Fred Nathan says.

Think New Mexico is supporting a bill introduced in this year’s legislature (HB 307) that proposes to overhaul the legislature’s public project spending system. Under the bill, the state’s most urgent infrastructure priorities would be funded based on a transparent merit based system instead of political considerations.

Today, the $2.4 million Oñate Monument is closed. Tourists can still view the imposing Juan de Oñate statue if they are willing to park outside the locked gate and jump the wall. Rio Arriba County is looking for tenants willing to lease the visitor’s center building.

State Senator Emilio Naranjo died in 2008 at the age of 92.

Was the Oñate project Naranjo’s last hurrah? Dr. McGeagh, who recently published a biography of the legendary political boss, has an opinion. “It would have been (a last hurrah) if it had been successful. But since it wasn’t successful it wasn’t much of a hurrah,” McGeagh says.

Read below: The Vision for the Oñate Monument and Visitors Center

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Albuquerque building inspectors blatantly broke state rules and regulations and when state construction regulators found out what happened, their reaction was one of “shock” and “surprise.”

“I cannot explain it,” said Albuquerque’s Planning Director Suzanne Lubar.

Ground zero for this public safety scandal is the City of Albuquerque’s Building Safety Division. According to the results of a two-month KRQE News 13 investigation, high ranking building officials ignored New Mexico regulations by using unqualified inspectors to perform critically important safety inspections. Even though they knew the rules, they violated them anyway. The city’s violations went unchecked for 16 months.

“It’s a public safety issue. Clear and simple,” said state Regulation and Licensing Superintendent Mike Unthank.

Unthank told KRQE News 13, the use of unqualified inspectors puts the public at risk.

“I think it not only puts the public at risk, it also puts the entity that has performed uncertified work in a very difficult situation from a liability stand point,” Unthank said.

The issue relates to medical gas systems used in healthcare facilities like hospitals, surgery centers, veterinary and dental offices. If a medical gas system fails, or if it is improperly installed, a patient can suffer dire consequences, even death. That’s why state regulations require all medical gas installations be approved only by specially trained and certified inspectors. The certification process includes classroom study and a written proficiency exam. Only certified inspectors can approve medical gas installations. However, that requirement didn’t stop Albuquerque building inspectors from repeatedly violating state rules.

Take for example medical gas inspections performed by Albuquerque’s Chief Plumbing and Mechanical Supervisor, Roger Coble. Even though Coble lacked qualifications, he performed medical gas inspections in January, March and May of 2014 at a dental office on Montano in northwest Albuquerque. In October 2014, Coble made a medical gas inspection at a South Valley dental clinic. In March 2015, Coble inspected a medical gas installation at Presbyterian Hospital. And, in November 2014 the uncertified Coble inspected a medical gas project at Presbyterian’s southeast Albuquerque day surgery facility.

KRQE News 13’s investigation found over the 16-month period, Roger Coble failed to get his medical gas certification and was not qualified to perform any medical gas inspections during that period. From January 2014 to April 2015, Albuquerque’s Chief Plumbing Supervisor performed at least 12 medical gas inspections for which he was not qualified.

Albuquerque Planning Director Lubar told KRQE News 13 she expects Roger Coble to be familiar with medical gas rules and regulations. However, when asked why Coble would ignore the rules Lubar said, “I do not believe that he intentionally or willfully violated state law.”

Roger Coble wasn’t the only unqualified inspector performing medical gas inspections. Last year, building inspector Vidal Espinosa approved medical gas installations at an Albuquerque veterinary clinic and a dental office. Vidal Espinosa was not qualified to perform those inspections. Espinosa has since left the Albuquerque Planning Department.

Director Lubar said she did not know why unqualified building inspectors were assigned to perform critically important medical gas inspections.

“We are absolutely going to try and find out. I don’t know if we will know,” Lubar said.

Albuquerque’s Chief Building Official, Land Clark, oversees the Building Safety Division. Clark admits unqualified inspectors did perform medical gas inspections contrary to the rules. He said he did not know at the time that the uncertified inspectors were violating state rules.

“This is very serious. We take regulation very seriously and it is our job and we did not do a good job here,” Land Clark said.

KRQE News 13 asked Roger Coble about the allegations.

“I think you are being misled,” Coble said. When asked if he had done any medical gas inspections since he started work for the city in 2013, Coble said, “I believe I have. Not very many.”

Over the course of 16 months, two uncertified Albuquerque building inspectors performed 15 medical gas inspections at 9 healthcare facilities. Land Clark says one is too many. However, Clark adds, “We do about 85,000 inspections a year and we did mis-assign 15 of them.”

KRQE News 13 has learned that as early as 2013 Roger Coble was told by the medical gas industry he needed certification to perform medical gas inspections. In April 2015, the State Regulation and Licensing Department (RLD) was tipped off to Albuquerque’s faulty medical gas inspections.

“The city did not make us aware of the scope and the number of inspections they were making. They had kind of indicated there were one or two or maybe three, a small number. Apparently that number may be larger than we were originally led to believe,” RLD Superintendent Unthank told KRQE News 13.

Unthank said Albuquerque building administrators were confronted with the allegation they had used uncertified inspectors to do medical gas inspections. “The response was that they admitted it. They apologized,” Unthank said.

Unthank said medical gas inspections performed by uncertified inspectors are not valid.

“Some of these are installations at hospitals as well as dental clinics. We would definitely want to work with the city to go back and look at every one of those 15 (inspections) to make sure (the installations) are properly installed and certified,” Unthank told KRQE News 13.

In an effort to ensure that medical gas equipment is safe, the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department directed Albuquerque’s Building Safety Division to document the re-inspection of all nine healthcare facilities that received faulty oversight.

“We can honestly tell the public that at no time were the businesses, the employees or the customers of those businesses in danger,” said Planning Director Lubar. “That doesn’t excuse the fact that we did not have the proper certification. We absolutely should have had that,” Lubar added.

Following the state RLD investigation, Roger Coble enrolled in an online medical gas inspection course. He received his medical gas certification in May 2015. Coble’s supervisor, Land Clark, said he is “disappointed” in Roger Coble. Clark told KRQE News 13 Coble would be “held accountable” if it is determined Coble knew he needed certification prior to doing medical gas inspections. The City of Albuquerque has hired a private investigator to look into the matter.

There is no evidence the owners of the nine healthcare properties that received faulty medical gas inspections knew inspectors were not qualified.

“We are apologetic. We are very sorry. We are also human and sometimes we make mistakes,” Suzanne Lubar said. “We are trying to make every effort to make it right and we do apologize,” Lubar added.

SANTA FE (KRQE) – It’s a $6,000,000 treasure trove of public money that is unspent and stashed away, for years, in an obscure government program. When House Ways and Means Chairman, Rep. Jason Harper found out he was “shocked.”

“When we think about having six or seven million dollars laying (around) somewhere that hasn’t been touched in years, we need to take a harder look at things,” said Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle.

The focus of KRQE News 13’s investigation is on the ‘Art in Public Places’ program at the Department of Cultural Affairs in Santa Fe. New Mexico’s Public Art Office is responsible for showcasing the state’s artistic diversity through public art. Since inception, the program has acquired a vast collection of paintings, photographs, textiles and sculptures for public display across the state.

New Mexico Public Art is funded through a state law referred to as “1% for the Arts”. The statute requires one-percent of every legislative capital construction appropriation be set aside for public art. For example, if lawmakers approve $200,000 to construct, say, a new senior center in Albuquerque, one-percent of that, or $2,000, goes into the Public Art Fund. That money is then used to acquire artwork for the new building.

Since it began 30 years ago, the “1% for the Arts” program has funded more than 2,500 artistic compositions worth an estimated $14 million. Examples of 1% art work include an abstract landscape mural at the newly constructed State Scientific Laboratory in Albuquerque. And, gracing the lobby of the new Court of Appeals building in Albuquerque is a unique metal sculpture purchased with 1% funds. These are the success stories. Behind the scenes, however, New Mexico’s public art program is troubled.

There are hundreds of examples:

• The $2.6 million BMX racing park in Albuquerque. Even though this state funded project was completed 9 years ago, the $26,000 designated for art work there has yet to be spent.
• The Las Cruces Aquatic Center was built a decade ago. The $91,000 earmarked for art work there is still sitting in Santa Fe.
• In 2006, lawmakers appropriated $300,000 to renovate the historic Red Brick School House in Tularosa. However, the $3,000 designated for public art there is nowhere to be seen.
• The Albuquerque Zoo’s Veterinary Clinic has been waiting eight years to see the $5,400 that was supposed to be spent on art work there.

KRQE News 13’s four-month investigation found the Department of Cultural Affairs failing to fund hundreds upon hundreds of art projects across the state. And, it’s not because the agency doesn’t have the money. In fact, Cultural Affairs has been sitting on more than $6 million. Instead of spending the money, the Department of Cultural Affairs stockpiled it. Millions of dollars have been parked for almost a decade and some goes all the way back to 1998.

When asked whether that is a problem, Cultural Affairs Cabinet Secretary Veronica Gonzales replied, “Oh absolutely.”

State Rep. Jason Harper says the $6 million sitting at Cultural Affairs caught his attention.

“I was shocked. Six million dollars has been sitting there 10 years stale. That’s a large sum of money that could really go to some important projects,” Rep. Harper said.

“We’re in a tough world on money,” Senator Ingle said. “Money like that that’s sitting there needs to be put to some good use. It was a part of an appropriation. If it hasn’t been used in these years it needs to be taken away. The state of New Mexico (surely has) a better use for it than sitting somewhere,” Senator Ingle told KRQE News 13.

Santa Fe State Senator Peter Wirth said New Mexico can’t afford to have $6 million just sitting around for years.

“I think we need to get these dollars out. We need to put the money to work and we need to showcase the extraordinary art that’s created in this state,” Senator Wirth said.

“Art is a major economic driver throughout the state and this program provides work for artists. We should not overlook the fact that when the dollars aren’t getting out that impacts our economy so we need to get this program on track,” Senator Wirth adds.

How did Cultural Affairs end up stockpiling more than $6 million all these years?

“It’s obviously something we’re very concerned about. I think there were a lot of mitigating circumstances,” said Cultural Affairs Secretary Gonzales.

Secretary Gonzales says the problem was created some 10 years ago during the previous administration. The years 2006, 2007 and 2008 were years when New Mexico was flush with surplus revenue. Lawmakers went on a record setting capital spending spree authorizing billions of dollars for statewide construction projects. One-percent of that went into the Public Art Fund which translates into millions of dollars for public art.

“The art in public places program is one program that really suffered in terms of staff capacity…. It had a huge number of projects that they were trying to address. So they got behind,” Secretary Gonzales told KRQE News 13.

The process for selecting each art piece is very time consuming. Cultural Affairs was faced with a nearly impossible task. It was required to dole out millions of dollars for hundreds of art projects across the state without enough staff to do the job. Instead of increasing Cultural Affair’s budget, lawmakers slashed it. According to Secretary Gonzales, “There were massive budget cuts. The department itself suffered close to $8 million in loss of funding.”

KRQE News 13 reviewed Art In Public Places funding between 2004 and 2008. During that five-year period, the department was unable to process more than $3.5 million intended for 593 individual public art projects scattered across the state. Today that backlog has grown to $6.2 million for about a thousand projects.

Senator Peter Wirth says not all the blame should be placed on the Cultural Affairs Department.

“We appropriated this money in those years and by the time the dollars got into the system we had taken away the employees that the agency needed to implement the program,” Senator Wirth said.

“It’s a resource question. We’ve got to get the resources to the agencies so that they can do the job the law requires them to do. And we haven’t done as good a job as we should have,” according to Peter Wirth.

Secretary Gonzales says, “This has been one of my top priorities. We do take it very seriously. We’re trying to get these balances spent down. We’re trying to address the projects that are still waiting to be initiated.”

Secretary Gonzales won’t speculate when, or even, if, her department will be able to eliminate the art project backlog. However, some lawmakers are losing patience.

“I can tell them one thing. They better get a better plan about how to use this 1% for the arts (money) or before the paint dries we’re going to have it,” says Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle.

Mobile users click here to view »

Sortable Database of AIPP Appropriations 2004 – 2008

Database Legend: Funding Codes

• GF – General Fund
• GOB – General Obligation Bonds
• STB – Severance Tax Bonds
• STBR – Severance Tax Bonds Reauthorized
• SRF – State Road Fund

Source: Department of Cultural Affairs

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) –  Dr. Mark Evanko calls it, “Despicable.”

Physicans Assistant Rosalind DeGeorge call it, “Dishonest and Fraudulent.”

And New Mexico Insurance Superintendent John Franchini calls it, “A tragic deal and … very, very serious.”

According to a two-month KRQE News 13 investigation, a large New Mexico health care organization with clinics throughout the state has been quietly embezzling from its employees.

The focus of the KRQE News 13 investigation is on Atrinea Health, a firm that operates Urgent Care and Family Practice offices across New Mexico.

Last year, Atrinea Health’s financial condition was so desperate the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. In desperate need of cash, company executives secretly raided employee benefit accounts. The medical corporation embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from its employees. Money that was supposed to go towards health insurance and retirement plans was illegally diverted to pay company bills.

Dr. Mark Evanko worked for Atrinea Health at its Los Lunas clinic.

“It’s a feeling of being violated. I’m not an investigator but it seems illegal to me,” Dr. Evanko said.

“It’s not acceptable to take other people’s money,” said Rosalind DeGeorge who also worked for Atrinea in Los Lunas.

When asked if Atrinea took employee insurance premiums and spent it someplace else, CEO Drew Markell admitted, “It appears that way.”

According to former State Insurance Superintendent Chris Krahling, any time an employer diverts employee benefit money, “It’s an egregious breach of trust between the employer and the employee.”

“It is a direct violation of the fiduciary responsibility that an employer has to their employees. It’s morally wrong. It’s ethically wrong and it flies right in the face of every decent business practice … I can ever think of,” Krahling said.

Dr. Evanko knows the problem first hand. Every two weeks Atrinea took $157 out of Dr. Evanko’s paycheck for a Voluntary Life Insurance Policy. However, instead of forwarding that money to the insurance company for Mark’s life insurance, Atrinea spent the funds elsewhere.

Because Atrinea failed to pay the insurance premiums on time, the Lincoln Financial Insurance Company told KRQE News 13 it was forced to cancel the policy. That was last July. Even though employees no longer had life insurance, Atrinea continued to deduct the money from their pay checks anyway. Markell says Lincoln Financial is owed about $9000 in unpaid premiums.

Dr. Evanko calls Atrinea’s diversion of his money, “despicable.”  After repeated phone conversations with Drew Markell about his missing money, Markell abruptly fired him last month.

Insurance Superintendent Franchini says people could go to jail for intentionally taking employee benefit money.

“Employers need to understand that that is not their money and they could get in serious trouble if they take someone else’s money and use it for another purpose,” Franchini said.

“It’s a serious transgression. It’s stealing,” Franchini adds.

And, it’s not just life insurance premiums. Atrinea Health also looted some $40,000 from its employee retirement accounts. Physician’s Assistant Rosalind DeGeorge is missing more than $3000.

“That is despicable that they would take our money and basically divert it to some other cause,” DeGeorge says.

And when Rosalind inquired about her missing 401(K) funds she too was fired. So where is her retirement money today?

“I believe Mr. Markell still has it somewhere,” DeGeorge says.

KRQE News 13 asked Atrinea CEO Markell about the missing 401(K) funds.

“It’s not missing. It didn’t make it to the 401(K),” Markell said.

Markell denies it was embezzlement. “I don’t think that necessarily fair,” Markell told KRQE News 13.

“(The money is) not missing. It’s not where it’s supposed to be,” Markell added. He claims he did not know that a former Atrinea executive had improperly diverted the retirement funds.

“The person who was in charge of that is no longer here. Once I became aware of that situation and it was determined that my directives were ignored I immediately put a corrective action plan into place,” Markell said.

However, Rosalind DeGeorge isn’t buying Markell’s explanation.

“I do not believe that it is possible (Markell did not know). If it is possible then he’s an absolutely awful CEO. He should know what’s going on in his own company,” DeGeorge said.

The U.S. Department of Labor, which regulates corporate retirement funds, has been notified of the Atrinea situation and is investigating.

And, it’s not just retirement funds that are missing. Last May, Atrinea stopped paying the premiums for group health insurance, even though the money was still being deducted from employee pay checks. According to Blue Cross Blue Shield Atrinea owes $227,000 for unpaid health insurance premiums.

KRQE News 13 asked Markell why the employee’s money did not go to Blue Cross Blue Shield?

“The money wasn’t here for them to be paid,” Markell said.

Markell says it’s not fraudulent. “We just simply were not a position to be able to pay the premiums to Blue Cross Blue Shield,” Atrinea’s CEO said

In May 2015 Atrinea Health filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Last month, the health care organization shut down for good. Urgent Care clinics in Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Ruidoso and Santa Fe were closed and the remaining employees were let go. Even though Atrinea is out of business, the firm is now under investigation for insurance fraud.

“There is a major investigation going on at this time in regard to the illegal transfer of employee money for other purposes besides protecting the employee and their benefits,” said Insurance Superintendent Franchini.

“I can’t be exactly sure who within the organization has stolen our money but somebody has,” said former Atrinea employee Rosalind DeGeorge.

“I sincerely hope that they get what they deserve,” DeGeorge added.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It’s a health care system gone wrong.

“I was terrified and I went in and I was totally gullible. They could have told me it was going to cost $1,000,000 an hour and I would have said yes, please save my life.” Gene Cavallo said.

The Angel Fire businessman was diagnosed with cancer in 2011. After a yearlong ordeal, hospital doctors saved his life.

However, Cavallo’s nightmare was just beginning.

“I’d go to my mailbox and there would be five different bills in it,” Cavallo said. “There would be one for pennies, another one for several thousand dollars and another one for several hundred dollars.”

The medical bills nearly bankrupt him.

Health insurance only covered part of the tab. After he underwent major surgery, Cavallo was bombarded with more than 150 bills totaling $40,000.

“I couldn’t figure out what I was being billed for. I couldn’t figure out why the amounts were what they were,” Cavallo said. “Often the statements that the insurance companies sent me bore little or no resemblance to the actual bills I got. I couldn’t even make heads or tails out of anything. It was just a mass of paper.”

Cavallo is just one victim caught up in a health care crisis threatening the wallets of consumers nationwide. More than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies are connected to illness or health care debt.

“The tragedy is that in too many cases New Mexicans are paying more than they can afford and more than they should have to pay,” said Fred Nathan, Executive Director of Think New Mexico.

Nathan said the lack of transparency in medical bills costs the average New Mexican hundreds of dollars each year. That translates into millions of dollars statewide.

“Right now when you go to a hospital, in many cases you can’t find out the cost of your care until months afterwards and you usually get a bill that is indecipherable with a little black box that says pay this amount,” Nathan said.

“I think it’s inexcusable that we can’t get at least basic information about price and quality in healthcare.” Boston OB/GYN, Dr. Neel Shah said.

Shah heads a non-profit called Costs of Care. It’s an organization that promotes better health care at lower cost.

“I would say that most of the line items on a hospital bill are not only inflated but the prices are completely arbitrarily determined. It doesn’t make sense to you. It doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to most Americans. But this is a system that’s evolved over several decades and very clearly needs to be fixed.” Shah said.

So how do hospitals charge for their care?

In New Mexico, that’s the $13 billion question. The answer is so complicated that most doctors don’t even understand it.

“The way the system is structured … it makes it very difficult for many hospitals to credibly justify what they are charging,” said Albuquerque Family Practice Dr. Jim Tryon. “I don’t think you can look at the current charges from the hospitals today and look at the wild variations that we see from hospital to hospital and say those variations can be justified by high tech maintenance and workforce maintenance and uncompensated care.”

What is known is that hospital charges never reflect actual cost of care. All hospital bills are inflated and hospitals will never tell patients in advance the price for care.

“The reality is that people are blindfolded in effect when they go into a hospital in terms of the cost of their care,” Nathan said. “It’s easier to get information about the cost and quality of a toaster in New Mexico than it is about a major medical procedure.”

Hospital charges are closely guarded secrets, but not anymore. KRQE News 13 has compiled a first-ever comparison of actual patient charges from all 44 New Mexico hospitals. And what it shows is a bombshell.

For example, if you are treated for pneumonia with major complications at Northern Navajo in Shiprock, your bill will be on average,$13,349. If treated for the same illness at Lea Regional in Hobbs, the bill will average $72,199. It is a difference of almost $59,000.

A major bowel procedure with complications at Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe will be billed at about $73,881. Just an hour away at Lovelace in Albuquerque, the charge for the same procedure will be on average $165,083. The difference between the hospitals is $91,202.

If someone is treated for blood poisoning at UNMH, they will pay on average $96,745. For the same procedure down the street at Lovelace, the bill will average twice as much, $197,256.

The hospitals with the highest number of expensive procedures are Lovelace in Albuquerque, Eastern New Mexico in Roswell, Lea Regional in Hobbs and Memorial in Las Cruces.

The facilities with the lowest number of charges are Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe, Presbyterian in Albuquerque, UNMH in Albuquerque and Rehoboth McKinley in Gallup.

If the hospital issues a person a bill, it doesn’t mean they have to pay it. Lovelace Health Systems Chief Financial Officer Stephen Forney says medical bills are always discounted depending on which insurance company is picking up the tab.

“When [patients] get their statement with their full bill charges, it is absolutely not what they are expected to pay. It is merely a statement of charges,” Forney said.

Meanwhile, Cavallo was stuck with stacks of cryptic hospital bills that nobody could explain.

“There was no way to deal with this that made any sense at all so what I decided to do is draw a line in the sand and let the chips fall where they may. It seemed to me that this was really a terrible injustice that I was having to put up with,” Cavallo said. “I was in pain and having to recuperate from my surgery at the same time and it was abusive. And I decided not to play the game anymore.”

After shelling out thousands of dollars for incomprehensible bills, three years ago, Cavallo gave up and boxed up the remaining unpaid medical invoices and put them in storage.

“It was a terrible experience. I felt like I was being beaten up by billing offices that weren’t even aware of who I was or why they were sending me bill,” Cavallo said.

Nathan says one of the reasons health care is so expensive is because it is not transparent.

“We think the fix is to create a user-friendly public website where any New Mexican can go and find out information about both price and quality for any of the hundred most common procedures at any of our 44 hospitals in New Mexico,” Nathan said.

Fourteen states already have medical transparency websites. Similar legislation has now been proposed for New Mexico.

“If you are a hospital and you believe you have fair prices and good quality, you would want the public to know that,” Nathan said. “On the other hand, if you don’t have good prices and you don’t have good quality, then you might want to oppose this bill.”

Nathan says in states that have medical transparency websites where consumers can shop around for price information, there has been roughly a 7 percent decrease in health care costs.

“New Mexico of all the states in the country is one of the states where health care is least affordable,” said Shah. “The first step is to at least start holding people accountable. It just makes sense on a gut level. People ought to know roughly what the differences are in costs.”

The New Mexico Hospital Association says it supports medical transparency, but it does not support the Think New Mexico proposal. The Hospital Association said public websites that disclose price and quality are costly to produce and, for the most part, are not meaningful to most consumers.

The Hospital Association is backing a separate legislative initiative. Both bills are pending in Santa Fe.

According to Forney, hospital bills are the number one dissatisfaction facing the business side of the industry.

“It’s very important for us to figure out how to make that a cleaner, simpler process and it’s a very high priority for the industry,” Forney said.

• Interactive: Hospital Billing Costs

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – It’s a major movie blunder exposed by News 13’s Larry Barker. A blockbuster film that tells the story of a Navy Seal team in Afghanistan, has been the center of another battle in New Mexico.

Now, the Hollywood production company is paying for a big mistake.

As a 2013 Larry Barker investigation revealed, movie makers used land in New Mexico to film, and they paid thousands for it. The problem is, they paid the wrong man.

For battle scenes in the war movie, ‘Lone Survivor,’ film makers paid Juan Sanchez thousands of dollars to build a movie set on land in Chilili.

However, as Larry Barker reported, Sanchez, President of the Chilili Land Grant, doesn’t own the property. In fact, Patrick Elwell does, and he didn’t see a dime.

“It’s been in the family over 100 years,” Elwell said, referring to the land used to film ‘Lone Survivor.’

Film makers built a replica Afghan village on Elwell’s land without telling him. Larry Barker found Sanchez duped the movie’s production company out of $35,000 in rental fees.

“We’ve been in federal court, I had to prove that I was the owner,” Elwell said. A court agreed, Elwell is the rightful land owner.

Now, the production company has agreed to pay Elwell the $35,000 in rental fees for using his property.

“I’m happy with the result, I mean attorney fees ate up probably three-quarters of that, but the whole thing here at the beginning, was establishing that I was the owner,” Elwell told KRQE News 13.

The movie’s copyright owner, Georgia Film Fund Seventeen Productions, claims they were led to believe the old Chilili Land Grant owned the property.

“Anybody that has a deed within the Chilili Land Grant doesn’t have the ownership of the land,” Sanchez told News 13 back in 2013.

Sanchez argued property in the grant didn’t belong to Elwell. But, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled against the claim.

Now, movie makers are suing Sanchez, saying he misled them.

“Basically, he’s tried to bully his way through all this,” said Elwell. “So it was well worth it, we set precedent in saying that it’s not yours, Juan.”

Elwell said the $35,000 doesn’t come close to paying for damages done to his property during film-making. “Grass isn’t growing at all, because there was so many trucks and things that were on that property,” explained Elwell.

But rather than taking the risk of losing more money in court fees, Elwell told KRQE News 13 that setting a precedent for property owners with his case, is good enough.

“I’d like to see more films made here, but lets do it right and lets protect the land owners and property owners who pay taxes,” said Elwell.

Elwell added, Bernalillo County and the state should take more care in ensuring that film makers check public records for rightful land owners.

Elwell told KRQE News 13 he still hasn’t seen Lone Survivor. He said he received an estimate, and it’ll take nearly $200,000 to restore his land back to what it was.

The battle between the Chilili Land Grant and the production company continues in court. A federal judge will decide whether the Chilili Land Gant should pay back the film makers for the rental fees.

*Correction: When this story first aired and was published on our website, we showed the wrong picture of Cheryl Ortiz. We corrected the mistake and apologize for the error.

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

A KRQE News 13 investigation found that Elan 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.”

Elan 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 Elan documents, Jordan earned 1,600 credit hours in 28 days.

Susan Trujillo also got a cosmetology license after graduating from Elan 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 Elan 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)

Even though Elan 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 Elan 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.”

Elan 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 Elan . Now, she is no longer licensed by the state.

Christopher Tsosie dropped out of an Albuquerque beauty school owing almost $7,000 in unpaid tuition. He ended up at Elan 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 Elan transcripts.

In regards to the phony transcripts, Apodaca says it isn’t true. His co-owner, Abeyta, also says that Elan 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 Elan from enrolling any new students pending further action of the board.