Corrupt Albuquerque Cops Had Friends in High Places, Including Internal Affairs
For a decade and a half, officers made DWI cases go away in exchange for bribes, relying on protection from senior officers implicated in the same racket.
For a decade and a half, federal prosecutors in New Mexico say, Albuquerque police officers conspired with a local defense attorney, Thomas Clear, and his investigator, Ricardo Mendez, to make DWI cases disappear in exchange for bribes. According to prosecutors, this "DWI Enterprise" was so engrained that it encompassed "almost the entire" Albuquerque Police Department (APD) unit charged with apprehending drunk drivers.
The scheme began, expanded, and continued operating right under the noses of top supervisors, including Police Chief Harold Medina. Recent plea agreements shed light on how that was possible: The defendants say the racket enjoyed the protection of senior APD officers who had participated in it—apparently including the commander and deputy commander of the department's internal affairs division and a lieutenant who worked for them, all of whom were placed on administrative leave as a result of the corruption scandal. Medina, who has repeatedly promised to "make sure that we get to the bottom of this," had previously put those officers in charge of rooting out corruption.
Mendez pleaded guilty to federal racketeering, bribery, and extortion charges on January 24. Last Friday, two former APD officers, Honorio Alba Jr. and Joshua Montaño, pleaded guilty to similar charges.
Alba, who resigned last March amid the federal corruption investigation, joined the APD in June 2014 and was assigned to the department's DWI unit in February 2017. His performance supposedly was so exemplary that the New Mexico chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving named him "Officer of the Year" in July 2023, a distinction that the APD proudly noted in an Instagram post that was not deleted until the end of 2024. By the time Alba received that honor, he admitted in his plea agreement, he had been taking bribes from Clear's office for five years.
In exchange for cash, "free legal services, gift cards, hotel rooms, and other gifts," Alba and his colleagues would either refrain from filing charges against DWI suspects or ensure that charges were dismissed by failing to show up at pretrial interviews, hearings, or trials. The cops typically would refer drivers they stopped to Mendez, who would promise to make their cases go away if they hired Clear to represent them, paying for his services in cash. Clear had an impressive track record of delivering on that promise, allowing drivers to avoid criminal records and keep their licenses, by seeking dismissals based on the arresting officer's prearranged absence.
"Alba admitted he helped recruit officers into the scheme and personally introduced them to Mendez and Clear," the Albuquerque Journal notes. He "warned the pair which officers to 'avoid attempting to recruit'" because they might be inclined to blow the whistle. He "admitted that he, Clear and Mendez also asked senior APD officers who had been involved in the scheme 'to use their positions and influence' to ensure the officers involved were not exposed."
Montaño, who resigned in March 2024, became an APD officer in 2008. He was assigned to the DWI unit in May 2017 and began taking bribes in 2019. "I was aware that other APD Officers Members who had worked in the DWI unit and were part of the scheme would help recruit and train the next generation of Officer Members," he says in his plea agreement. Montaño adds that Mendez "discussed with me many of the other officers," including employees of the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office and the New Mexico State Police as well as the APD, who "had been and were part of the DWI Enterprise."
Mendez "did so," Montaño surmised, to "make me feel more comfortable joining the DWI Enterprise because of the number of senior, and often high-ranking, officers who were also Officer Members, and to ease my concerns about continuing to participate in the DWI Enterprise." He says "this generational participation, particularly within APD, allowed the DWI Enterprise to take root amongst almost the entire APD DWI unit over a lengthy period of time." Montaño says it was his understanding that Clear and Mendez "would ask more senior APD Officer Members to use their positions and influence within APD to try to ensure that DWI officers, including me, were not investigated or disciplined in connection with their illegal activity."
The "positions and influence" of senior officers who had themselves participated in the no-show scheme help explain why Medina, whose tenure as deputy chief, interim chief, and chief began in December 2017, avowedly did not have a clue about what was happening until he was briefed on the FBI investigation of the DWI unit in October 2023. The APD has linked a dozen officers to the DWI corruption scandal, including Commander Mark Landavazo, who was placed on administrative leave in February 2024 and fired the following August; Deputy Commander Gustavo Gomez, who was placed on administrative leave last October; Lt. Justin Hunt, who resigned in February 2024; Lt. Kyle Curtis, who retired last month after he was placed on administrative leave; and Lt. Matthew Chavez, who was placed on administrative leave the same day as Curtis.
Landavazo, who joined the APD in 2007, had initiated at least 10 DWI cases involving Clear's clients that were ultimately dismissed. He had been running the APD's internal affairs division since 2021, meaning he was conveniently responsible for the oversight that the "DWI Enterprise" managed to evade. Gomez was Landavazo's internal affairs deputy.
Hunt, who joined the APD in July 2000 and served in the DWI unit from August 2011 to May 2014, was a lieutenant assigned to southeast Albuquerque. KOAT, the ABC affiliate in Albuquerque, notes that Hunt was "the top-earning city employee in 2023, raking in $256,908.66," which was "$30,000 more than his boss," Medina. Curtis, who likewise had been an APD officer since 2000 and had served in the DWI unit, was working under Landavazo and Gomez in the internal affairs division. Chavez, who joined the APD in 2008, was another former member of the DWI unit.
Given its friends in high places, the DWI racket's longevity begins to make sense. But that does not seem to be the whole story. In December 2022, for example, the APD got a tip that DWI officers were getting paid to make sure that cases were dismissed. The tip, which specifically mentioned Alba, was investigated by Acting Sgt. Jon O'Guin at the APD's Strategic Criminal Intelligence Unit, which is part of the department's Special Investigations Division, then overseen by Commander Aaron Jones.
According to the tipster, APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told City Desk ABQ last April, three bars in northeast Albuquerque were alerting police to intoxicated patrons so they could be nabbed after they drove away. "They were targeting individuals, who then could get their cases dismissed," Gallegos said, describing the tip. "So they would arrest and charge them and then get their cases dismissed and there would be some sort of payment for that."
In response to that tip, O'Guin examined "the activity of the seven officers who were on the DWI unit at that time, including Alba, [Harvey] Johnson and Montaño," City Desk ABQ reported, citing a five-page "intel file" that it obtained through a public records request. But O'Guin's investigation apparently was limited to the specific allegation, as opposed to the general claim that officers were helping arrestees avoid prosecution in exchange for payoffs.
In December 2022, the officers' activity "did not show any obvious indicators that would match the allegations of the information received for the initial complaint in regards to increased activity in the areas of the three locations mentioned in NE Albuquerque," O'Guin wrote in the intel file. "All officers' CAD [computer-aided dispatch] activity showed what would appear to be normal traffic stops and requests for assistance responses across the city." The same was true, he said, for October and November.
That summary of O'Guin's investigation is dated January 2024, by which point the FBI had collected enough evidence to obtain search warrants that it served on Clear's office and officers' homes that month. "When the allegations were relayed from the FBI, the detective was asked to update the file with documentation of the work that was initially done," Gallegos explained. "So that part of the report was dated January 2024, when he provided that information."
Given the timing, O'Guin's gloss may have been deliberately self-exculpating. In any case, he evidently never thought to look at what was generally happening with the DWI cases that Alba et al. handled. If he had, he would have discovered the same curious pattern of dismissals that local reporters found after the FBI raids.
According to Gallegos, City Desk ABQ reported, "the only people who were told about the allegation in December 2022" were Medina, Jones, and Jones' deputy. So it looks like the "influence" of former DWI unit officers was not the only factor that allowed the corruption to continue until it was revealed by the FBI investigation.
As a result of that investigation and an internal probe launched in November 2023, Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman dropped about 200 cases generated by the DWI unit, saying the officers' testimony could not be trusted. After Mendez pleaded guilty, Medina said the scandal was "disappointing on so many levels because it appears police officers from several agencies conspired with at least two lawyers and a paralegal to manipulate the criminal justice system, at the expense of victims of DWI."
To illustrate how public safety was compromised, KRQE, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, describes one of several cases in which Alba, anticipating a payoff from Clear, refrained from filing DWI charges. The case involved "a repeat drunk driver" who was "pulled over driving down Central [Avenue] with his car on fire." The driver had "at least two open containers of alcohol" inside the car and "later blew three times the legal limit on an alcohol breath test."
In addition to letting off flagrant offenders, corrupt APD officers allegedly arrested innocent drivers, extorting payments to Clear in exchange for their cut. According to a state lawsuit that Carlos Sandoval-Smith filed last October with help from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, Montaño pulled him over on June 25, 2023, while he was driving east on Central Avenue. The complaint says Montaño falsely claimed that Sandoval-Smith was speeding. But instead of giving him a speeding ticket, Montaño "unlawfully expanded the scope of the stop by initiating a DUI investigation without reasonable suspicion that Plaintiff was driving under the influence."
Although Sandoval-Smith "performed very well" on field sobriety tests, the complaint says, Montaño arrested him, handcuffed him, and took him to a downtown police substation for a breath test. According to the test, Sandoval-Smith's blood alcohol concentration was 0.05 percent, which is well below New Mexico's 0.08 percent cutoff for presuming a driver is under the influence. Montaño nevertheless decided to charge Sandoval-Smith with DWI.
After the test, Montaño moved Sandoval-Smith "out of the visual and audio reach of his body-worn camera, which he had removed and placed on a counter," the lawsuit says. He told Sandoval-Smith "he had an attorney friend who could make the DUI charge go away." After Sandoval-Smith was released, he received a voicemail message from Montaño. "Some of your jewelry was missing from the property from Sunday evening," the officer said. "It looks like the PTC [Prisoner Transport Center] officers didn't put that in your bag, but I have it."
Montaño called again and spoke with Sandoval-Smith, reiterating that he "had an attorney for him" and giving him contact information for Clear. Montaño said Sandoval-Smith could retrieve his bracelet from Clear. Then Sandoval-Smith heard from Clear's office, where he went to meet with Mendez. According to Sandoval-Smith's recording of the conversation, Mendez said he could guarantee that the DWI charge would be dismissed if Sandoval-Smith hired Clear to represent him. Mendez said Sandoval-Smith could either pay Clear $7,500 up front or pay him $8,500 in installments. Sandoval-Smith left the office without agreeing to hire Clear. His case was dismissed in January 2024, the same month that the FBI searched Clear's office.
In the meantime, however, Sandoval-Smith was suffering the consequences of his bogus arrest. "The DWI charge led much of his family to stop speaking with him," and "he lost his job," the Albuquerque Journal reported last February. Because Sandoval-Smith could not afford the ignition interlock device that was required as a result of the DWI charge, the newspaper said, he "couldn't drive." Even after his license was reinstated, he told the Journal, he avoided driving at night and was "consumed by 'a feeling of fear'" whenever he saw a police car.
Montaño "ruined my life," Sandoval-Smith said. "I didn't want to wake up some mornings. I was very depressed. I didn't care. I didn't have a drive because I had no control of my life. My life wasn't up to me anymore." His lawsuit says he "suffered and continues to suffer substantial past and future damages," including "loss of liberty, loss of income, severe emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment, and humiliation."
In addition to Montaño, Sandoval-Smith's lawsuit names Clear, Mendez, Landavazo, Alba, and several other officers implicated in the corruption scandal as defendants. It alleges that Montaño's colleagues in the DWI unit "engaged in the same or similar conduct as Defendant Montaño to compel or attempt to compel individuals arrested for DUI to retain Defendant Clear as an attorney and to refrain from retaining any other attorney in exchange for compensation from Defendants Clear and Mendez."
The defendants also include Medina and the city of Albuquerque. "On information and belief," the complaint says, "Defendants Chief Medina and City knew of the agreement between Defendant Officers and Defendants Clear and Mendez." It's not clear whether that's true. But it is fair to say that Medina, who joined the APD in 1995, has run or helped run the department since 2017, and charged foxes with guarding the henhouse, should have known something was amiss.
