​Recently Appointed Special Prosecutor Dismisses NCSWA Perjury Cases

By Jake Arnold
 
The Office of 13th Judicial District Attorney Barbara Romo Tuesday (12/19/23) filed "nolle prosequi" (decline to prosecute) notices in the perjury indictments handed up earlier this year by a special grand jury against sitting Rio Arriba County Commissioner Alex Naranjo and former County Manager Tomás Campos.
 
After a tortuous and convoluted series of legal maneuvers beginning 2019 with a petition drive (organized by Antonio "Ike" DeVargas) to convene a special grand jury to examine allegations/suspicions of corruption, malfeasance and misfeasance within the North Central Solid Waste Authority (NCSWA), the special jury did convene over the strenuous and repeated objections of First District Attorney May Carmack-Altweis, who had previously requested First District Judge Matthew to appoint a special prosecutor due to multiple issues in the history of this matter that Carmack-Altweis identified as conflicts of interest for her office. 
 
At a joint hearing in these cases in November, Carmack-Altweis strongly advised the judge that he bore responsibility for appointing a special in these cases.  Carmack-Altweis had filed a voluminous brief setting out the history of her office in opposing the  NCSWA special grand investigation Wilson seemed then to agree with the district attorney. Counsel for at that November hearing both defendants endorsed the proposition that Wilson should make such a special prosecutor appointment.  Carmack-Altweis and  and counsel representing Naranjo and Campos all agreed that the best choice for Wilson's appointment of a special prosecutor would be District Attorney Romo of the 13th District, which includes Sandoval,  Valencia and Cibola Counties.  In the past, former First District it Attorney Henry Valdez (under whom Romo once worked as a top prosecutor) referred cases in which he had a conflict to the13th District Attorney's Office
 
But several days later Wilson rejected the Carmack-Altweis motion for him to make the appointment and stated in this ruling that the Carmack-Altweis was herself completely capable of  appointing a special prosecutor for both perjury cases.
 
Acquiescing to the judges admonition , Carmack-Altweis did then in early December issue a succinct, one-page appointment documents naming Romo as the special prosecutor in both cases.  Romo quickly accepted the appointments and she, along with one of her and one of her prosecutors, completed paperwork establishing themselves  as (special prosecutor) assistant district attorneys in the First District.  A procedural hearing in both cases was initially sent for 12/21.23, but now the matter is effectively moot as Romo's team's office had dismissed the cases.
 
Doing so in short order, Romo's justification for dismissing the cases was a single sentence:
 
"The indictment(s) returned by the specially convened grand jury exceeded their lawful authority."
 
One analysis of this development suggests that, in theory, a special grand just convened pursuant to a citizen petition is authorized to investigate and recommend action, but that that authorization does not include handing up indictments with the endorsement and agreement of the district attorney (in this case the First District District Attorney) technically overseeing those proceedings even if that district attorney's office had sought to scuttle the special grand just process at every step along the way (going back to 2029 in this instance).

Read Earlier Article NCSWA Indictments and Special Grand Jury Report