Washington Federal
Might Consider
A New
Alarm Company
Volume 58, Number 20
Española, New Mexico 87532
Thursday, February 12, 2015
38 pages, 4 sections 50 cents
No Jail Time for Former City Mgr.
As part of his sentence, James Lujan will be on
electronic monitoring for six months
By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
SUN Staff Writer
Española’s former city manager will
spend six months on electronic monitoring, followed by three years of supervised probation, for taking bribes
from a paving company while he
worked for Santa Fe County as the
public works director.
Judge James Hall sentenced former
city manager James Lujan, 58, Monday, to the electronic monitoring because he said Lujan had to surrender
some of his freedom as a consequence
of taking the bribes.
Hall suspended the six years Lujan
faced on one count of a public official
taking a bribe, seven counts of conspiracy to commit fraud over $20,000
and one count of conspiracy to commit
fraud between $2,500 and $20,000.
Eight of the nine counts are third-degree felonies. The last is a fourth-degree felony.
Lujan pleaded guilty Aug. 27, 2013
and agreed to testify against the man
who paid him.
“I have a real problem with public
officials taking bribes,” Hall said.
Lujan will also have to serve 300
hours of community service during his
three years of supervised probation.
The plea agreement, which had him
testifying against the man who bribed
him, Advantage Asphalt owner Anthony Montoya, had Lujan’s possible sentence capped at six years, with the
district attorney’s office asking for less
than a single year, which would have
landed him in jail rather than prison.
Regina Ryanczak told Hall that Lujan fulfilled his end of the bargain and
she was not asking for any jail time.
His testimony made the case against
the other defendants that much more
secure.
Lujan’s attorney, Dan Marlowe,
asked Hall to give Lujan a conditional
discharge so Lujan could find gainful
employment again.
When Hall gave Lujan the electronic monitoring sentence, which limits
Lujan’s movement, he eliminated any
possibility for a conditional discharge
and any chance that the felony would
be wiped off Lujan’s record.
Hall said he understood it would be
See 'Former' on page A4
Grad
Rates
Continue
To Slide
By Ardee Napolitano
SUN Staff Writer
(SUNfoto by Wheeler Cowperthwaite)
James Lujan (left) talks to his lawyer Dan Marlowe, after Lujan received a six-month
term of electronic monitoring. Lujan has until Friday to sign up for the monitoring service,
which will slightly reduce his freedom of movement. He is not, however, on the same restrictions imposed by a GPS bracelet and house arrest.
While
some
high
schools in Rio Arriba
County improved graduation rates, Española’s two
secondary schools’ rates
dipped in School Year
2013-2014.
According to the most
recent state graduation
rates released Monday by
the New Mexico Public
Education Department, the
only high school in the
Española School District,
Española Valley High
School, had a graduation
rate decrease of 2.7 percentage points, which
means the graduation rate
went from 58.2 percent in
2013, to 55.5 percent in
2014.
See 'District' on page A4
Man Files Police New Bleachers Might Be Uprooted
Less than a year
Brutality Lawsuit since project was
completed,
officials are
discussing the
possibility of
replacing bleachers
By Ardee Napolitano
SUN Staff Writer
(SUNfoto by Wheeler Cowperthwaite)
Officer Victor Grossetete (far right) stands guard June 27, 2014
while Det. George Martinez (center) adjusts the handcuffs of a man
accused of beating the mother of his children and holding her hostage. Officer Eric Gallant (left) listens to the man. In a different arrest,
an Española man filed a lawsuit in January accusing Grossetete and
two other officers of brutalizing him after he questioned the police
harassment of his elderly neighbor.
By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
SUN Staff Writer
An Española man filed suit,
Jan. 19, against three Española
police officers and the city because they allegedly shocked,
choked, beat and illegally arrested him in February 2014.
Tegra Donnelly is suing the
city and officers Greg Esparza,
Victor Grossetete and Sammy
Marquez on a single tort claim
count alleging assault, battery,
false imprisonment, false arrest
and deprivation of his federal
and state constitutional rights.
Donnelly, 28, was arrested
Feb. 15, 2014, by Grossetete on
charges of disorderly conduct
and resisting arrest and bailed
out of jail two days later.
A month after the charges
were filed in Española Magistrate Court, Magistrate Judge Joseph Madrid dismissed them
with prejudice, which means the
charges cannot be brought again,
online court records state.
Donnelly alleges in the lawsuit, Grossetete put him in a head
lock, choked him and punched
him in the face.
Esparza used a stun gun on
Donnelly’s buttocks, while Marquez helped hold Donnelly
down, all because he challenged
Grossetete’s authority to harass
an elderly man.
On Feb. 15, 2014, Donnelly
was sitting on a couch near his
neighbor’s property with his
4-year-old nephew on his lap.
The neighbors were gathered
around a fire to keep warm, when
teenagers began lighting fireworks. They were told to stop,
but Grossetete and Marquez arrived due to a noise complaint.
“Defendant Grossetete began
placing his hands inside the
See 'Lawsuit' on page A3
Some Española School District officials have started to
explore the possibility of removing the recently refurbished
Española Valley High School
bleachers in an attempt to compensate for this year’s projected
athletics budget deficit.
Administrators project a
$215,000 athletic budget deficit
by the end of Fiscal Year 2015,
District Superintendent Danny
Trujillo said at a School Board
budget work session, Jan. 26.
Although they originally
budgeted $265,000 for athletic
operations, they project spend-
during games. Currently,
adult patrons, including senior citizens, pay $5 each to
watch a game at the gym.
Students pay $3 to watch the
games.
According to a PowerPoint
presentation at the meeting,
officials expect to earn
$180,000 if they install 800
chairbacks and increase the
seat cost to $7.50 per person.
They expect to earn $240,000
with 800 chairbacks and an
increased seat cost of $10 per
ticket. This revenue is assumed by selling all 800 upgraded seats at every boys
and girls home basketball
(SUNfoto by Ardee Napolitano) games (19 this season).
Española School Board Secretary Annabelle Almager (left) dis- Officials earned $100,000 in
cusses the condition of the School District’s Fiscal Year 2015 bud- seat sales last fiscal year and
get, along with Board President Lucas Fresquez, at a Board work so far this fiscal year, they
session, Jan. 26. The Board spoke about a proposal to install chair earned $42,000, without the
backs at the Española Valley High School gym to increase seat chairbacks installed.
sales to compensate for the current athletics budget deficit.
But because the chairbacks
available are made of plastic,
ing about $480,000 on athletic answer is yes. However, we
they
will have to replace the
operations by the end of this have to qualify the answer.
current
bleachers in the gym,
fiscal year, he said.
How do we generate $215,000?
which
were
refurbished 10
“I guess the question we That’s all we really need.”
months
ago.
The current
need to ask ourselves is, ‘Are One solution offered during
bleachers
are
made
of wood
we going to have a balanced the work session was to install
athletics budget by the end of
the year?’” Trujillo said. “The
chairbacks in the gym and increase the price of seat tickets
See 'Project' on page A4
Thieves Break into Bank over Weekend
By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
SUN Staff Writer
The Española Police Department is investigating the burglary of a computer from the
Washington Federal bank that
happened over the weekend.
Bank employee Joanna
Romero called 911 at 8:15 a.m.,
Monday to report the break-in
and asked for police officers to
clear the building to make sure
no one else was still inside,
E911 Dispatch Center logs
state.
By 11 a.m., the bank had reopened.
Washington Federal’s infor-
mation security officer, Lance
Semer, said thieves broke in
through the drive-in window.
“They grabbed a work station
and took off with it,” he said.
By Tuesday morning, the
window had been fixed.
The work station hard drive
did not have any consumer information stored on it, he said.
All client information is stored
on a secured server and no one’s
information was compromised.
“Our policy is not to store
any information on work station
hard drives,” he said. “We are
good.”
Officer Greg Esparza, one of
the first on the scene, asked dispatchers to check whether any
alarm calls came in over the
weekend.
Dispatchers told Esparza the
alarm went off at 2:21 a.m.,
Feb. 6. (Sic)
Det. Cpl. Daniel Espinoza
then asked dispatchers to call
the FBI office in Santa Fe. After
an hour or so, Espinoza was
able to speak to the on-call
agent, “Karen,” who advised
him the FBI would handle the
investigation, the logs state.
FBI spokesman Frank Fisher
wrote in an email that the Department is the lead agency in
the investigation and the FBI is
playing a supporting role.
Espinoza said he is working
with the FBI to figure out who
broke into the bank and the FBI
helped him process the scene.
“We have a couple of leads,”
he said. “We’re waiting on some
surveillance.”
He said the teller window
was broken with a rock.
Any theft from a bank,
whether stolen money or equipment, is a federal crime, according to U.S. law.