Corrections Department whistleblowers agree to settlement, drop lawsuit

Oct. 31—Four former state Corrections Department investigators recently agreed to settlements totaling $310,000 in exchange for dropping a lawsuit that alleged high-ranking agency officials quashed their findings of employee misconduct and retaliated against them by gutting their division.

The plaintiffs worked in the Office of Professional Standards, which is responsible for investigating staff misconduct, identifying trends, providing training and recommending policy changes to the Corrections Department secretary. It is considered by some an internal affairs department.

According to their whistleblower lawsuit — filed in state District Court in 2021 and settled earlier this month — department officials up to and including Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero "wanted to control, and continue to keep secret ... files and investigations which reflected badly upon her, the department and its officials."

When the employees balked at participating in what the lawsuit claims were cover-ups, the department and Tafoya Lucero took resources away from their office "until the unit became so understaffed, underfunded and under resourced and unsupported that it became a mere shell."

A Corrections Department spokeswoman called the allegations in the lawsuit "false."

"These settlements represent a compromise to avoid the expense of litigation and are in no way an admission of liability," Corrections Department spokeswoman Carmelina Hart wrote in an email Friday.

Tafoya Lucero did not respond to an email asking for an interview or a phone message left with her executive assistant Friday.

One of the plaintiffs — former Investigative Supervisor Robert Parra — was placed on administrative leave for more than two years leading up to the filing of the lawsuit, according to the complaint.

Three others, including former Office of Professional Standards Bureau Chief Carl Vigil, former management analyst Vanessa Paul and supervisor Tasha Yazzie-Chase resigned in 2019 "in lieu of being placed on admin leave or terminated."

Parra will receive $198,000 to settle his claims against the department; Vigil will receive $72,000; Paul $25,000; and Yazzie-Chase $15,000, according to Oct. 4 settlement agreements posted on the state Sunshine Portal.

The state has spent $62,000 litigating the case to date, General Services Department department spokesman Thom Cole wrote in an email Tuesday.

The plaintiffs' complaint detailed a plethora of misconduct they claim was substantiated through the course of investigations conducted as part of their job.

For example, the complaint says, the employees discovered a warden at Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility had created a "burn pit" on prison grounds where he and his wife brought "various contraband" to be destroyed.

The professional standards office sent the report up the chain of the command, the lawsuit says, but the warden was allowed to retire without discipline.

According to the lawsuit, another investigation dubbed the "quid pro quo investigation" revealed a warden had offered a corrections officer a bribe to make false allegations against three other officers.

Jim Brewster, then the department's general counsel, didn't want Parra to submit a report in the case, the lawsuit says, "because it was tied to the burn pits" and he didn't want the report to be released to an investigative reporter who had filed a records request in the matter.

Other investigations in which employee misconduct was substantiated but didn't result in consequences included a case in which a guard was caught on video attacking an inmate and another in which staff leaked the identity of a confidential informant who had been providing information about staff and inmates smuggling drugs into a facility, the lawsuit says.

After the leak, the employee became a target at the prison where he worked, the lawsuit says, and had to resign for his own safety, costing OPS a valuable source of information.

When the plaintiffs realized their findings were being buried or ignored, their complaint says, they complained up the chain of the command and even met with liaisons from then-Gov. Susana Martinez's office, who were "dismissive" of their concerns.

"The cases discussed in the lawsuit were investigated and cleared by the previous administration," Hart wrote in an email.

Most of the events occurred before Tafoya Lucero was named to head the department in the spring of 2019, but the alleged retaliation and defunding of the department occurred on her watch and with her knowledge, according to the lawsuit, in which she is a named defendant.

Vigil met with Tafoya Lucero in April 2019, when she was interim cabinet secretary. He shared his concerns the office's findings were being covered up, but "she did not act," the lawsuit contends.

OPS had investigated Tafoya Lucero twice before she became secretary, according to the lawsuit — once in 2015 and once in 2017 for an incident in which she was accused of hitting a corrections officer with her vehicle after failing to stop at a checkpoint while entering prison grounds.

In May 2019, a month after he met with Tafoya Lucero, Parra was placed on administrative leave, according to the lawsuit, which adds he wasn't informed or interviewed about the reasons he was placed on leave — which he said were fabricated — until 14 months later.

By the time they filed their complaint in 2021, the complaint says Parra had been on administrative leave without a determination for more than 2 1/2 years.

Under her direction, the lawsuit says, officials retaliated against the OPS unit by not filling open positions, radically reducing funding and removing their authority to open investigations.

Vigil, Paul and Yazzie-Chase resigned within months of Parra being placed on leave, the lawsuit says.

Attorney Nicholas Davis, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Thursday the net effect has been that OPS is no longer serving its function.

"While the details of the Whistleblowing were the basis for the complaint ... the larger concern is that the facts these plaintiffs alleged showed the dismantling of any sort of internal oversight and to my knowledge nothing has been put in its place," Davis said.

Hart did not directly respond to a question about the number of vacancies in the unit.

"The OPS bureau is under the administrative services division, has oversight, and a robust team of trained investigators across the state," she wrote in an email. "The bureau chief directs the actions of field and facility investigations and works directly with division level managers to ensure appropriate action is taken on all cases."