Authorities Searching For 2 Sunland Park City Employees In Extortion Investigation
Two more Sunland Park city employees are wanted in connection with the extortion investigation that led to Saturday’s arrest of acting mayor, Daniel Salinas, and city manager Jaime Aguilera.
Amy Orlando, 3rd Judicial District Attorney for Southern New Mexico, said city-works director, Dario Hernandez, and a city Human Resources temp, Martah Alonda Lozano are facing charges of conspiracy and tampering with evidence.
“They are coming, get rid of the video,” is what Dario called out to Aguilera when police stormed Sunland Park City Hall on Tuesday according to an arrest affidavit obtained by ABC-7. The affidavit also points out that police confiscated Aguilera’s computer during the search, and found the video of Sunland Park mayoral candidate Gerardo Hernandez with a topless woman was being manipulated with editing software.
According to that affidavit, Lozano ran into the mayor’s office, locked the door, then ran out the back of the building during the search. Police said when they were able to get inside of the mayor’s office, the desk was disheveled, with computer cables exposed, and it appeared one or more computers had been removed.
An ABC-7 crew caught up with Lozano only hours after the search took place while she was showing potential voters the topless-dance video.
“We wanted to show this video to the community because we want the residents to be aware of who it is that’s seeking to represent them,” said Lozano.
The affidavit stated that on Feb. 16, a retired Las Cruces police detective was contacted by Gerardo, who said he was approached by a man at his campaign camp. According to Gerardo, the man told him to withdraw from the race, then pulled out a photo of Gerardo with a topless woman.
Gerardo told ABC-7 the ordeal has tainted his opinion of Sunland Park politics .
“To tell you the truth, I never expected the election to go this far,” Gerardo said. “This is my first time in politics. I thought I was just going to present a program (to voters) and see who gets more votes.”
