Former New Mexico State Investment Officer Gary Bland testified this fall before the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of its own “non-public, fact-finding inquiry” into the investment scandal that is mushrooming, documents show.

Bland, who resigned last month from his $300,000 state job, was ordered to appear at the federal agency’s Denver regional office Sept. 2 to testify under oath, according to documents made public Tuesday by the New Mexico State Investment Council (SIC).

It is unclear from the seven-page document divulging Bland’s testimony whether Bland testified on that date. Also unclear is the content of Bland’s testimony. But State Investment Council (SIC) spokesman Charles Wollman confirmed for the Independent on Tuesday that Bland “did speak with regulators.”

That Bland appeared before the SEC is a small revelation in New Mexico’s ongoing role as a player in a ever-widening investment scandal with ties to New York state and California. The SEC inquiry coincides with an ongoing criminal investigation that began earlier this year in New York. Last month, New Mexico’s former investment adviser, Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity, pleaded guilty to securities violations brought by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Earlier this year a California man pleaded guilty in the same New York probe.

In a news release put out by Cuomo’s office at the time, Meyer admitted to pushing certain deals to New Mexico’s two investment agencies — the SIC and Educational Retirement Board — as the state’s investment adviser because politically connected individuals here recommended them. Meyer didn’t name names.

The State Investment Council made public several documents Tuesday, two of which have been sought for months by the media — two federal grand jury subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico that are related to the federal criminal investigation.

Like subpoenas released by the Educational Retirement Board earlier this year, Meyer’s Aldus Equity figures prominently in one of the two federal subpoenas the SIC released Tuesday.

They show that federal authorities demanded all agency contracts with Aldus as well as correspondence between the state agency and Aldus and any list of firms Aldus proposed that the SIC invest in.

The other subpoena the SIC released from the federal grand jury Tuesday demanded  all “e-mails, including attachments, to or from Bland from Jan. 1, 2003 to the present.

The other two documents released Tuesday by the SIC were from the Securities and Exchange Commission — a subpoena demanding a wide-ranging list of records as well as that agency’s rules of testimony that were sent to Bland prior to his appearance to testify.

Two names well known by now to those following New Mexico’s investment scandal  make an appearance in the SEC’s subpoena to the State Investment Council: Marc Correra and Anthony Correra.

No one in law enforcement has accused either Correra of wrongdoing, and Marc Correra’s attorneys in the past have said he worked hard to earn the fees he was paid.

Marc Correra has shared in $22 million in fees over half a dozen years, according to spreadsheets provided by both the SIC and ERB. The huge amount of fees has provoked outrage from state lawmakers and others in recent months, fueled in part by some investments that have failed, costing the state money. Two of the deals he helped arrange have cost New Mexico more than $115 million.

Marc Correra is the son of Anthony Correra, a friend of Richardson who was involved in the hiring of State Investment Officer Gary Bland, the top staff member at the State Investment Council.

The Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena demanded that the State Investment Council turn over “all documents reflecting any communication with or relating to any of the following”:

a. Marc Correra or his related parties, including without limitation Ajax Investments,
Crosscore Management, and SDN Advisers; .
b. Anthony Correra or his related parties; or
c. Any individual or entity that acted or has been identified as a third party marketer, placement agent, or finder in connection with any actual or potential investment by the SIC.

Wollman, the SIC spokesman, said Tuesday that his agency is still handing over documents to investigators from both federal agencies.

In making the documents public Tuesday the SIC shifted gears after months of denying media requests. Reasons for the shift in policy were outlined in a one-page letter from the state’s interim investment officer Bob Jacksha, which accompanied the released documents.

Jacksha wrote:

“The Investment Office initially denied those requests under New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act … in order to refrain from interfering in any federal investigation.

“However, in the staff’s ongoing legal review, with the input of council Members, and under my own direction as Investment Officer, the Investment Office will today publicly release the subpoenas to all who have asked for them previously.”

SEC subpoena for Gary Bland’s testimony

DOJ subpoena of Gary Bland e-mails

DOJ subpoena for contracts, documents related to Aldus Equity etc.

Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena of SIC documents

SIC letter on release of subpoenas