I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
An attorney for the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board said Thursday the U.S. Attorney’s Office requested that the agency keep confidential the two subpoenas it sent to the agency in May.
But Christopher Schatzman, the agency’s counsel, said Thursday he pushed the U.S. Attorney’s office twice in the last two months to put that request in writing, but to no avail. The U.S. Attorney’s Office politely declined.
The first time Schatzman said he spoke with an assistant U.S. Attorney who declined his request. Schatzman said he later went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office again with the request to put the confidentiality request in writing, but got the same response.
The Educational Retirement Board released the subpoenas Thursday after initially refusing to make them public on the grounds that they might impede a federal investigation.
Other state agencies have gotten similar federal subpoenas, and at least one official has spoken of the U.S. Attorney’s office requesting his agency to keep the subpoenas confidential. Stephen Flance, board chairman of the New Mexico Finance Authority, told lawmakers of the U.S. Attorney’s Office request to keep that agency’s subpoena confidential during a legislative hearing earlier this month.
Educational Retirement Board Chairman Bruce Malott had gone on the record prior to Thursday’s release of the subpoenas as saying he supported making them public. On Thursday, Malott said “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and I continue to believe the public’s right to see their government at work should never be marginalized.”
The subpoenas, both of which were sent to the state agency in May, show that federal investigators are avidly interested in Texas-based Aldus Equity, New Mexico’s former investment adviser.
Also of interest to federal authorities, according to subpoenas, were all “e-mails, including attachments, to or from Malott from Jan. 1, 2003 to the present
But Aldus appears to be a major focus, judging from the subpoenas themselves. Five of 14 items enumerated in the two subpoenas have to do with the Texas firm, including a demand for copies of all agency contracts the agency had with Aldus. Copies of correspondence between the state agency and Aldus, any list of firms Aldus proposed that the ERB invest in and any documents generated by Aldus Equity that were in the possession of the Educational Retirement Board also were demanded, the subpoenas show.
Further, the subpoenas show that ERB was commanded to appear with the documents before a grand jury June 9.
