D’Antonio alleges sabotage from former DA
The district attorney in Las Cruces is accusing his predecessor of deleting emails and trying to prevent his office from getting federal funding. ABC-7 spoke with both current DA Mark D’Antonio and former DA Amy Orlando Wednesday about these allegations and their merits.
D’Antonio said he only found about the deleted emails and their recovered contents about a month ago, and felt it necessary to disclose them to the public in the report released Tuesday
“I just showed a snapshot of what was going on,” D’Antonio said. “With a backdrop of what was going on just prior to me taking office, and what I encountered when I took office.”
The report details the investigation starting with an open records request in April, and the contents of some of the emails recovered in the course of researching the request. D’Antonio said some include instructions to prevent grant funding efforts and for staff to purposefully lie. But D’Antonio denies that this report is vindictive against the previous DA.
“This is not a witch hunt,” D’Antonio said.
Orlando, the former district attorney and current chief counsel for the Department of Public Safety said that this report has a deeper political purpose, aimed at previous DA and current governor Susana Martinez.
“Obviously, they’re using my name and trying to attack me,” Orlando said. “But the only logical connection she can make is that the governor is running for re-election right now.”
Orlando said that while she did write the emails, she didn’t prevent any funding from coming to the DA. The hundreds of thousands mentioned were already applied for and coming under her administration, but Orlando said she wasn’t going to do D’Antonio any favors for the future.
On another email addressing changing her calendar settings, Orlando said that was a matter that had to be handled carefully due to conditions in the office.
“It was a personnel issue we were dealing with, and that’s why I said they needed to speak to my assistant Jenny, and she would clarify things in person.”
Orlando said no-one from D’Antonio’s office has attempted to contact her about any of those issues. She sees no reason why the report should have been issued outside of the political motivation.
“I’m not really sure what purpose this serves,” Orlando said. “He said clearly – the last line of his report clearly says ‘This is not a criminal investigation, there’s no criminal activity based from this.’ So I don’t understand what an investigative report coming from his office gives to the community.”
But D’Antonio says he had no other motivation than being transparent about the dealings of his office.
“I think public information in and of itself it a powerful tool,” D’Antonio said. “And it’s incumbent upon me – I cannot sit in this chair and be privy to information like that and not disclose it.”
There are currently no criminal charges pending on these allegations. D’Antonio said his office wouldn’t conduct any criminal investigation on them either. That would have to come from the state attorney general’s office, which D’Antonio has been in contact with.
