Here's a statement by Jamie Estrada through his lawyer Zach Ives
"While the U.S. Attorney's allegation of wrongdoing on my part is regrettable, I want to make it clear that I have not broken any laws or done anything improper. Nor was I dismissed from my job as interim campaign manager for Governor Martinez. Everyone knows that "the best defense is a good offense." Individuals in whom the public has placed its trust have come after me in an attempt to divert attention from their own improper actions, including the suspected Albuquerque Downs Racino bid rigging. I have every faith that not only will I be found innocent, but also that this attack on me will result in exposure of the true wrongdoers, once and for all."
ANd at bottom with statements from Gpv. Susana Martinez and Mike Corwin of Independent Source PAC
A federal grand jury has indicted a former campaign manager for Gov. Susana Martinez on 14 felony counts of email theft and lying to the FBI.
 |
| Estrada |
Jamie Estrada, 40, of Los Lunas is accused of intercepting emails sent to Martinez’s campaign account between July 2011 and June 2012.
Estrada is a longtime Republican activist and former candidate for Public Regulation Commission. He has appeared on KNME's In Focus representing the conservative view.
Estrada didn’t immediately respond to a phone call to his home.
According to the indictment, released Thursday morning from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Estrada was Martinez’s campaign manager for about six months in late 2009.
An unnamed supporter of Martinez’s set up an Internet domain — www.susana2010.com — for the campaign in July 2009. There were several email accounts associated with the domain, including one used by the governor herself. Estrada had the user name and password for the domain.
Before Estrada left in December 2009, the Governor allegedly sent Estrada an email requesting that he return all information belonging to the campaign, including any user names and passwords to any accounts.
“After Gov. Martinez was inaugurated in Jan. 2011, the governor, members of her staff and others continued to use the email accounts associated with the domain, a news release from the U.S. Attorney said. Indeed, as The New Mexican first revealed last year, Martinez and her staff routinely used the campaign email account and other personal accounts to discuss state business.
“In July 2011, individuals who had email accounts on the domain began receiving reports that emails sent to those accounts were bouncing back to the senders and soon determined that the emails were not getting delivered because the domain had expired,” the news release said. “Their efforts to re-register the domain were unsuccessful because they could not locate or recall the domain’s user name and password.”
The indictment says that the governor’s staff asked Estrada for this information, but he refused to give it to them.
Estrada allegedly used the user name and password to renew the domain and to change its settings so that incoming emails went to an email account on a different domain that Estrada controlled. Many of these ended up in the hands of Independent Source PAC, a liberal organization that has been highly critical of the Martinez administration. The PAC provided The New Mexican and several other news organizations with certain emails.
Martinez later ordered her staff not to communicate about state business on non-official email accounts.
Indictment is below:
UPDATE: Here's the full statement from Gov. Susana Martinez
“The federal felony indictment today vindicates what I have been saying for almost a full year – that the personal and political emails of dozens of people, including my own, were hijacked, stolen, and never received by the intended recipients.
Thousands of New Mexicans are victims of identity theft and cyber crimes each year, and I hope the indictment today sends a strong message that no one deserves to have their privacy invaded.
Even in the world of politics, issues should be the subject of tough and vigorous debates, but there are clear lines that should not be crossed and committing federal felony crimes to invade the personal privacy of political opponents is one of them.
I knew the defendant to be a man of suspect character. That is why I fired him from my campaign in 2009 and why I rejected him for a position within my administration after being elected.
Unfortunately, the stolen emails were passed to Bill Richardson’s former private investigator and numerous others, in order to exact the defendant’s revenge on me through disseminating, and grossly misrepresenting, those emails.
I am grateful for the professional work done by the FBI and United States Attorney’s office and have complete confidence that justice will be done in this case.”
And here's a statement from Mike Corwin of Independent Source PAC (who Martinez refers to as "Bill Richardson’s former private investigator")
It should be noted that of the 12 emails cited in the indictment, none pertain to the public record communications between high ranking members of Governor Susana Martinez’s administration and representatives of the Downs at Albuquerque during the contract procurement period.
Further, none of the emails cited pertain to the public record communication between high ranking members of the Martinez Administration, including the Public Education Department, regarding the apparent misuse of public resources intended for Governor Martinez’s political benefit.
This indictment in no way minimizes the apparent illegal conduct by Martinez and her administration as identified in the emails on which we previously reported.
As any responsible person investigating and reporting on government misconduct, I will continue to protect my sources.
Posts
