Sheriff Says 'Public Trust' in New Mexico Law Enforcement 'Is Completely Lost' Because of Police Corruption
"This is a gut punch," says Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen. "This is a kick to my balls and two black eyes, to be honest with you."
This was not a good week for John Allen, the elected sheriff of Bernalillo County, New Mexico. "I have never been betrayed like this in my life, and I'm pretty frickin' pissed off right now," he announced at a press conference on Thursday, striking the lectern for emphasis. "I am very angry right now."
Why is Allen so angry? On Monday, Undersheriff Johann Jareno, whom Allen described as "my right-hand man" at the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office (BCSO), resigned at Allen's request after he was implicated in a long-running, far-reaching police bribery scheme involving employees of three law enforcement agencies who took payoffs in exchange for making DWI cases disappear. The next day, Deputy Jeff Hammerel, whom Allen had placed on administrative leave a month ago after learning that the FBI was investigating him, pleaded guilty to federal bribery and extortion charges.
Hammerel admitted to conspiring with Albuquerque defense attorney Thomas Clear, his paralegal, and "a supervisory BCSO deputy" (an apparent reference to Jareno) to help Clear's clients avoid prosecution and keep their driver's licenses. In exchange for cash payments, Hammerel would refrain from filing DWI charges or deliberately miss hearings, pretrial interviews, or trials, allowing Clear to seek dismissals based on the arresting officer's absence. That scheme, which also involved the New Mexico State Police and nearly every officer assigned to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) unit charged with apprehending drunk drivers, began in the 1990s and continued through 2023.
The sheriff took another hit on Wednesday, when the Albuquerque Journal published a photo of a beaming Allen with his arm around Ricardo Mendez, who played a central role in what prosecutors call the "DWI Enterprise" as Clear's paralegal and investigator. In the photo, which was taken during a February 2023 lunch at a Little Anita's restaurant, Jareno is standing behind the sheriff and the confessed racketeer, his smiling face visible between them.
All of this sheds light on the grievance that Allen vented a couple of weeks ago in an interview with KRQE, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. Allen complained that the FBI had not kept him apprised of its corruption investigation, which became public in January 2024 after agents searched Clear's office and the homes of several Albuquerque police officers. "I'll cooperate with you," Allen said, explaining his attitude toward the FBI, "but I don't have any more trust in you."
As Allen now concedes, it was actually the other way around: In light of his close working relationship with Jareno and his chumminess with Mendez, federal investigators did not trust him. "Why did the FBI not trust Sheriff Allen?" he said at the press conference, repeating a question he said he had seen "in social media." He answered that question with another question: "How in the hell would the FBI ever trust me when my right-hand man, who speaks for me, [was a suspect]?" He added that "of course they're gonna suspect me when you find me in a photo with this guy"—i.e., Mendez, whom Allen called "a piece of crap."
Allen was already nervous about his connection to Mendez during his February 12 interview with KRQE. "I was actually friends" with Mendez, who "donated to my campaign," Allen said then, and "I met with Tom Clear." Allen worried about "the perception that they had access to me," saying, "it really does bug me because that perception is out there." On Thursday, he complained that local news outlets were "starting to defame my character" and emphasized that appearances can be deceiving.
Jareno, who started working for the BCSO in March 2009 and served in its DWI unit from December 2011 to October 2019, "introduced me to Mr. Mendez" in 2021, Allen said at the press conference. Although Allen is a Democrat and Mendez is a Republican, Mendez liked Allen enough to donate $200 to his 2022 election campaign. (Jareno, for his part, donated $1,000.) Although "I'm not gonna remember exactly how many times I met with Mr. Mendez," Allen said, they would discuss "my behavioral health plan" and "what I was going to do about the crime problem" and "corruption," which "in hindsight" is "very odd" because corruption "was already here."
Allen, who took office as sheriff in January 2023 but had worked for the BCSO from 2001 to 2019, said he had no inkling about the corruption in his office until the FBI investigation revealed it. "If I ever knew that Mr. Jareno and that Mr. Mendez were doing what they were doing," he said, "do you think in all hell I would ever have a lunch with him? No, I would not."
That lunch, which Allen said Jareno "set up," happened "three weeks into my term," he noted, and "it is OK for me to have lunch." As a "a politician and the sheriff," he said, he has a lot of lunches and poses for many photos. This particular picture, he emphasized, does not mean "I have anything to do with this DWI scandal."
Allen said he also was not aware of Mendez's criminal record, which KRQE says "dates back to 1990" and includes a felony conviction involving "more than 60 pounds of marijuana," which resulted in 18 months of probation. The Albuquerque Journal reports that Mendez also faced a cocaine charge, which "was dismissed after prosecutors stated he had furnished 'information'" helpful to an ongoing investigation. "Why would I ever ask if he had a criminal conviction or his criminal history if he was already a paralegal?" Allen asked reporters. "That's not something I would ever assume."
The lunch at Little Anita's—during which Allen had pancakes but "didn't eat all three of them" because he "was full," in case you were wondering—may have been just as innocent as the sheriff describes it. But Allen engaged in a bit of revisionism when he said, "I wouldn't even call it a friendship," referring to his relationship with Mendez. Just a couple of weeks ago, after all, Allen volunteered that he "was actually friends" with Mendez. And even if Allen did not "have anything to do with this DWI scandal," his trust in Jareno was obviously misplaced.
"It makes me sick to my stomach…knowing he was that close to me," Allen said. "I literally got sick and threw up in my garbage can."
Like Allen, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina insists he had no clue about the corruption discovered by the FBI. Medina's avowed obliviousness is hard to fathom, since he first joined the APD in 1995, has held senior positions for more than a decade, and has run or helped run the department since 2017.
According to a lawsuit by drivers arrested for DWI, Medina "ratified the conduct" of corrupt officers by "failing to intervene after receiving multiple notices" that they were "violating the law." In December 2022, for example, the APD got a tip that DWI officers, including one who later pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, were getting paid to make sure that cases were dismissed. The investigation of that tip did not find any evidence of bribery. Nor did the APD under Medina keep careful track of officers' court appearances, which might have revealed a suspicious pattern of absences and dismissals in cases involving Clear's clients.
Allen, by contrast, emphasizes that he has been running the BCSO only since January 2023. But is it plausible that he never caught wind of Clear's racket during his prior 18 years with the BCSO?
Allen himself suggested that deputies who were not directly involved in the scheme may have heard about it. "If you ever knew anything about this and you didn't do anything to stop it, get the hell outta my agency," he said. "We have a duty to report…We have a duty to intervene."
The evidence so far suggests that corruption was less pervasive in the BCSO and the state police than it was in the APD, where it involved "almost the entire" DWI unit. In addition to Hammerel, three APD officers have pleaded guilty so far, along with Mendez and Clear. Another dozen or so officers—including the former commander of the APD's internal affairs division, his deputy, three lieutenants, and a state police sergeant who had been lionized for nabbing drunk drivers—have been publicly implicated in the "DWI Enterprise." Since that scheme goes back decades ("30 years," according to Allen), it could easily involve dozens of officers.
Allen defended his decision not to conduct an internal investigation, as the APD did. "Everybody keeps asking me about an internal affairs investigation," he said. "I'm so sick of hearing that question. I will not do anything to interfere with the criminal investigation [by] the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Allen did not want to speculate as to what that investigation might ultimately find. "Would I ever be surprised that anybody else would be named?" he said. "I [wouldn't] at this point, really, in terms of what happened in the past before I was here and then what happened months into my tenure….We've seen this thing blow up in the last 16, 17, 18 months. Nothing at this point really surprises me anymore."
In his KRQE interview, Allen seemed more upset about the FBI investigation than he was about the corruption it had uncovered. But yesterday, he sounded appropriately concerned about the latter. "This isn't a black eye to the agency," he said. "This is a gut punch. This is a kick to my balls and two black eyes, to be honest with you." Public trust in law enforcement "is completely lost," he admitted, "and we have to rebuild it."
