Candidate Charged In Lap Dance Extortion Probe Elected Mayor Of Sunland Park, NM

It appears that Daniel Salinas is the apparent winner of the Sunland Park mayor’s race.

Unofficial results of Tuesday’s municipal election shows Salinas with 637 votes compared to Gerardo Hernandez’s 553 votes and Jose L. Hernandez’s 66 votes.

However, the results will likely be challenged in court.

Assistant district attorney Scot Key says prosecutors continue to investigate voting irregularities and they have filed a motion seeking possession of “some questionable absentee ballot boxes.”

Salinas has been Sunland Park’s mayor pro tem but before the election, he had been barred from City Hall, couldn’t contact city workers and was charged with trying to force an opponent out of the race with a secretly recorded video of the competitor getting a topless lap dance.

Salinas told ABC-7 on election night that he would have his attorney try to change the restrictions of his bail. District Attorney Amy Orlando said she would not be open to changing the bail restrictions.

Postponing the election was considered late last week but Judge Susan Riedel denied a motion to suspend the election Friday afternoon. Olando filed the motion after going through the findings from Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s investigation. Duran said she received complaints about absentee ballots and alleged voter fraud.

After hearing arguments from Orlando and Frank Coppler, Sunland Park City Attorney, Riedel ruled the state did not have enough evidence to meet the standard required by state law, and there are still actions county officials can take to make the election run smoothly.

According to the 57-page motion, the investigation turned up evidence of voter fraud cases where people were voting from Texas and voting more than once.

“In 19 years of being a prosecutor that we’ve never had the evidence up front of election fraud, but we have evidence, in fact, that six people have voted that live in Texas,” Orlando said Friday at a news conference at Las Cruces City Hall.

Orlando said there could be between 15 and 20 more cases of people voting from Texas.

The report states 13 people were registered to vote using the home address of Silvia Gomez, the city’s senior center director. One of those people was Jesus Dario Hernandez, of El Paso, the Sunland Park public works director, who is wanted by police for allegedly tampering with evidence in an extortion case involving a controversial tape.

The document also alleges that Salinas and City Manager Jaime Aguilera stole a box of 500 absentee ballots. Orlando said on the first day of absentee voting, 300 absentee ballots were turned in.

Salinas and Aguilera are charged with extortion and tampering with evidence after being accused of telling mayoral candidate Gerardo Hernandez to drop out of the race or they’d release a video of Hernandez with a topless woman. Orlando said the actions of the four city employees involved with that case “evidence a concerted, calculated and deliberate plan to undermine the integrity of the election.”

Orlando said the criminal investigation of the election is ongoing, and the state is going to press charges against anyone who has committed voter fraud. That’s a fourth degree felony, and if convicted, a person can face up to 18 months in prison.

The county had officials at the election on Tuesday to ensure it is run fairly and properly. As for the findings of the investigation, Orlando said the ballots already submitted by people from outside of Sunland Park cannot be identified and disqualified, so they will count in the end.

“We try and make sure it goes forward on Tuesday as fairly as what we can do. We can’t fix what has already happened, unfortunately,” Orlando said on Friday.