Site Map | Archives

Home › News › Local

Bernalillo County suspect in Metro Court kickback case paid $1 million

By Michael Gisick, Kate Nash, Erik Siemers
Originally published 04:21 p.m., August 23, 2007
Updated 12:28 p.m., August 24, 2007

Suspects in kickbacks case named in California lawsuit

In an odd wrinkle, many of those accused in the Metro Court kickback case are also named in a 2004 lawsuit that alleged improper use of campaign funds by former California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

Listed in the lawsuit as donors to Bustamante's campaign for governor in a 2003 California recall election are:

Smart Solutions Inc., incorporated by Sandra Martinez - $30,000.

Manny Aragon - $30,600.

Public/Private Projects Inc., incorporated by Michael Murphy - $1,000.

The lawsuit also lists a $30,000 contribution by Parra & Gagnon Consulting, although it is not clear whether Raul Parra is a principal of that firm.

The lawsuit was filed by the California Fair Political Practices Commission. It alleges that during the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis, Bustamante bypassed campaign contribution limits by funneling contributions made to his campaign fund for lieutenant governor into a fund for his gubernatorial campaign.

Bustamante needed to raise a "substantial amount of money in a relatively short period of time," the lawsuit says.

Bustamante publicly referred to the plan as "leveling the playing field by those candidates who are multimillionaires," the lawsuit states.

Many of the candidates, including the winner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had large private fortunes.

ALBUQUERQUE — Bernalillo County has paid more than $1 million to the latest person indicted in the Metro Court kickback case to make sure nothing goes wrong with its major construction projects.

Michael C. Murphy, who was named in a superseding indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, becomes the fifth person to face federal charges in the case.

Prosecutors say the five, including former Democratic Party powerhouse Manny Aragon, defrauded taxpayers out of $4.2 million during construction of the Metro Court complex, which was completed in 2004 at a total cost of about $83 million.

Murphy's company, Public/Private Projects Inc., was hired by the court in June 2002 to make sure nothing went wrong with the project. Metro Court judges were ultimately in charge.

Metro Court spokeswoman Janet Blair said the court is distressed by the allegations.

Blair said one of Murphy's main duties was to ensure billing and contracting procedures were followed.

"If it is true, it will be yet another breach of the public's trust," she said. "We would be pretty disappointed if these allegations are true."

In September 2002, Murphy's company was awarded a contract by Bernalillo County to oversee construction of the West Mesa jail, county spokeswoman Liz Hamm said.

After the jail project was completed in December 2004, the county issued a request for proposals seeking a "construction project administrator" to manage large-scale construction projects on an as-needed basis, Hamm said.

Murphy was awarded that contract, which runs through 2008. In all, the county has paid Murphy $1,125,485, Hamm said, an average of more than $19,000 a month.

Murphy's recent projects include the South Valley Health Commons, an East Mountains fire and sheriff's office, and the Fisher-Smith gym, said Hamm said.

She said Murphy primarily has been working on the new Health Services Unit at the Metropolitan Detention Center for about the past two years.

County Commission Chairman Alan Armijo this morning said county officials would study the indictment to see if they should consider suspending or terminating Murphy's contract.

"I don't anticipate anything happening until we get more information about the indictment," Armijo said.

In the original indictment filed in March, Aragon, former Metro Court Administrator Toby Martinez and two subcontractors were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. They have pleaded not guilty.

Three others have accepted plea deals with the U.S. Attorney's Office. They include Marc Schiff, the lead architect in the project; Ken Schultz, a former Albuquerque mayor who acted as a lobbyist for the project; and Manuel Guara, a subcontractor.

Federal indictments say the accused subcontractors submitted fraudulent or inflated bids for work, which were approved by Martinez and Murphy.

Aragon, a former state Senate president, is accused of procuring state money to pay for the bogus work.

Aragon pocketed $700,000 of the proceeds from the scheme, the indictments claim. Martinez and his wife, Sandra Martinez, a subcontractor also indicted in the court project, kept about $2 million, the indictments say.

Murphy has not entered a plea on the federal charges, which are the same as those facing the other accused co-conspirators.

Murphy's attorney, Jason Bowles, declined to comment directly on the charges.

"We're going to study the indictment and respond in court at the appropriate time," he said.

State records show a connection between Aragon and Murphy's company. Between 1998 and 2003, Public/Private Projects contributed $4,850 to Aragon's campaigns for the state Senate.

The new indictment also provides the first indication that prosecutors suspect the accused conspirators at least tried to extend their scheme beyond Metro Court.

According to the indictment, Aragon and Raul Parra, an indicted Metro Court subcontractor, both urged the state Department of Transportation to hire Toby Martinez as manager of a project to develop land owned by DOT.

The indictment doesn't specify which project or where it was proposed.

Once hired by DOT, the federal indictment states, Martinez told the sole bidder on the project that it should hire Parra as a consultant to put together a construction team.

Parra told that bidder he expected to receive a percentage of the project's cost for his services and he would be sharing the money with other people, the indictment claims.

State Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught said she was interviewed by the FBI and provided all information requested. The project in question was canceled.

"I am confident that Martinez and Parra were not able to carry out the alleged scheme," Faught said.

Martinez also was hired in 2005 to manage the redevelopment of DOT's Santa Fe headquarters. He'd been fired as Metro Court administrator in 2003 after being cited on domestic violence charges involving his ex-wife. He is no longer employed by the department.

Gov. Bill Richardson has called for reviews of the headquarters project by the Transportation Department's inspector general and by an independent lawyer.

The DOT allegation isn't the first indication of wrongdoing outside of the Metro Court case.

Allegation of corrupt construction practices during the building of the $45 million state District Courthouse in Albuquerque surfaced in a 2002 lawsuit against Parra by a former business partner. The lawsuit contained references to Aragon.

No charges have been filed in connection with the District Courthouse, completed in 2001.