Former Rio Arriba deputy sues, claiming firing was retaliation

Mar. 7—Former Rio Arriba County sheriff's Deputy Joseph Aquino has filed a whistleblower lawsuit that claims he was fired on a trumped-up charge of excessive use of force after uncovering wrongdoing by well-connected county officials and employees.

The complaint, filed last month in state District Court, reads like a who's who of Rio Arriba County officials and includes allegations of bribes, threats, personal use of public resources and nepotism.

Sheriff James Lujan, current and former Rio Arriba County commissioners, County Manager Tomas Campos and other county employees are defendants in the lawsuit, in which Aquino seeks an unspecified amount in damages. He is asking to be compensated for what the lawsuit said was harm to his reputation, which has made it impossible for him to find work in law enforcement since his July 2019 firing.

Many of the allegations center on three blood relatives: former Rio Arriba County Commissioner Danny Garcia; his nephew, Rio Arriba County Public Works Administrator Napoleon Garcia; and Napoleon Garcia's son, Terrance Garcia, a former police officer in the village of Cuba who also has worked at the Rio Arriba County jail. The Garcias also are among the defendants.

Rio Arriba County officials, including some of those named in the lawsuit, vehemently denied allegations in the suit and pointed to the events leading to Aquino's firing as justification for his dismissal.

Rio Arriba County Attorney Adán Trujillo said in an email Aquino's lawsuit is "beyond the pale," and provided video of the former deputy's interaction with an employee of the Family Dollar store in Chimayó in March 2019, which he said was the basis for Aquino's firing.

"In addition to this incident, where he battered an employee of the Family Dollar while he had a criminal suspect detained in his unit," Trujillo wrote in the email, "Mr. Aquino had a long history of disciplinary actions being taken against him at the Rio Arriba Sheriff's Office, including a citizen complaint of harassment during a traffic stop, an unsafe high speed pursuit, and a DWI arrest and a domestic violence incident while off-duty.

"The Family Dollar incident," Trujillo continued, "was the last straw."

The video shows Aquino's physical altercation with George Vigil, who later filed a lawsuit against the county over his treatment by Aquino.

The county agreed to pay $75,000 to settle the lawsuit in December, according to Trujillo.

Aquino faced criminal charges of battery and false imprisonment in connection with his treatment of Vigil, court records show, but the case was thrown out after Los Alamos County Magistrate Pat. A. Casados ruled there was no probable cause for the charges.

Aquino says in his complaint Lujan originally acted as if his altercation with Vigil was no big deal but later opened an internal affairs investigation and encouraged New Mexico State Police to pursue charges against him after he gave a case file containing allegations of wrongdoing by Lujan and other county officials to the state Attorney General's Office.

Aquino's lawsuit says he had worked at the department for six years before the incident, had never been accused of improper use of force and received a Medal of Valor from the department in 2018.

His attorney told the Rio Grande Sun in 2019 that Aquino, who is from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, was treated differently than other officers because he is Native American.

"I do not discuss anything in pending litigation," Lujan said when reached by phone Thursday. "I'm not talking to the press at all — at all."

The investigation

According to his lawsuit, the file Aquino gave the Attorney General's Office in late May 2019 concerned an investigation he began earlier that year into county Public Works personnel, including an allegation that county Public Works employee Jacob Montoya used a county credit card for personal expenses.

His investigation revealed Montoya failed to report a crash that damaged his county-issued vehicle, electing instead to have it repaired at a private shop in Chimayó — though the repair bill was sent to the county, his lawsuit says.

Aquino talked to county Public Works Administrator Napoleon Garcia and County Manager Campos about Montoya, his complaint says, and they told him "Montoya would be cleared of any wrongdoing despite evidence showing wrongdoing by Montoya."

In an email Friday, Campos denied talking to the deputy about Montoya.

"I never really spoke to him expect for hello, so anything that he says about me or allegations on me are not true because I only know of him is the videos from the family dollar store," he wrote.

Campos said Montoya didn't want to comment on the allegations.

Aquino's complaint says he believed Napoleon Garcia and Montoya were attempting to conceal and tamper with evidence related to the crash that damaged the vehicle. It also alleges Napoleon Garcia knew about the damage to the county vehicle but failed to report it because Montoya was related to him.

During his investigation, Aquino says in his complaint, county employees complained to him about other "unapproved self-endowment of County benefits by county employees."

Among these complaints, Aquino said, included a quid pro quo involving Rio Arriba County Commissioner Danny Garcia and his nephew, Napoleon Garcia, that included allegations of an "unjustified raise" for Napoleon Garcia and paving work done at Danny Garcia's front yard and at Napoleon Garcia's family ranch.

In an interview, Napoleon Garcia said Friday the allegations in Aquino's lawsuit are false and "absurd."

Napoleon Garcia, who said he is not related to Montoya, added he knew about the incident with Montoya's vehicle, but he didn't try to cover it up, and in fact placed Montoya on unpaid leave over the incident.

The vehicle was repaired at an outside shop because the county facility does not do body work, he added, with repairs paid for in accordance with procurement rules.

Napoleon Garcia said he knows nothing about how his uncle's yard was paved and the only work done on the county road to his ranch was done in the course of normal county road maintenance.

Danny Garcia, whose term ended late last year, said Friday he had no knowledge of the issues described in the complaint.

"Normally when people are terminated, the first thing they want to do is sue the county for wrongful termination," he said. "But, no, I've never gotten involved with personnel at all, zero. Commissioners don't get involved in the day-to-day operations of the county. The county manager does all that. [Aquino] wants to win a lawsuit I'm sure, but all of that is false."

Danny Garcia said his front yard is paved, "but that wasn't done by the county, that was done by myself."

"There is no pavement on Napoleon's road," he added.

According to the lawsuit, Aquino gave his case file to the state Attorney General's Office in late May 2019 after telling Lujan and other supervisors what he'd found. Aquino's attorney, Betsy Salcedo, said the deputy referred the case to the attorney general "because it was implicating public officials ... and indicated there was knowledge of the wrecked vehicle by the sheriff."

Attorney General's Office spokesman Matt Baca said the case file is "still under review."

The day after Aquino forwarded the case file to the Attorney General's Office, the Rio Arriba County Sheriff's Office opened an internal affairs investigation into his altercation with Vigil, according to the lawsuit.

In support of Aquino

Aquino's complaint includes affidavits from Cuba police Chief Manuel Romero and Española-area journalist Tabitha Clay in support of some his allegations.

Clay's affidavit concerns Aquino's claim that Lujan downplayed the altercation between the deputy and Vigil before using it as the basis to fire him.

Clay — who reported on the fallout from the incident in August 2019 for the Rio Grande Sun — said in an affidavit she was in Lujan's office in late March 2019 and heard Lujan say to Aquino, "Good job, not killing him, little mouthy bastard," while referring to the incident with Vigil.

According to Clay's affidavit, Lujan later told her: "We are going to send [Aquino] to anger management class and use of force training."

Romero said in an affidavit dated Aug. 6, 2020, that Terrance Garcia — at the time, a police officer in Cuba — threatened to retaliate against him to prevent him from sharing "damaging information" Garcia had shared "about his family and officials in Rio Arriba County regarding a scheme to frame Mr. Aquino."

Romero's affidavit says Garcia said the plot against Aquino was related to his investigation of "embezzlement and misuse of County property."

The affidavit also says that after Aquino applied for a job with Cuba police, Garcia tried to sway him against hiring Aquino by bragging "about his family's political pull in Rio Arriba County."

Attempts to contact Terrance Garcia were unsuccessful.

According to online court records, Terrance Garcia filed an employment discrimination complaint in January, accusing Romero of sexually harassing him while he worked at the Cuba Police Department.