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AG King mulls investigation into deleted DA's Office emails [The Santa Fe New Mexican](Santa Fe New Mexican, The (NM) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 26--Attorney General Gary King on Thursday blasted Gov. Susana Martinez over missing emails from her last year as district attorney in Las Cruces. Earlier this week, current District Attorney Mark D'Antonio released a report saying "it was discovered that a large number of office e-mails from former employees had been deleted and/or removed." The report said the messages should have been stored in a computer backup system, but had been erased. Also, the report says, a data server had been damaged and returned to the state Administrative Office of District Attorneys. The report said the emails appeared to have been deleted from folders created by D'Antonio's predecessor, Amy Orlando, whom he defeated in the 2012 election. Orlando, a Republican, was appointed by Martinez to fill out the district attorney term, but lost when she ran for election herself against D'Antonio, a Democrat. King, the Democrat running against Martinez for governor, said a "deeper investigation" into the emails may be necessary. The election is Nov. 4. "Media reports about an investigation by current DA Mark D'Antonio appear to reveal evidence of suspicious activity, including deleted emails, erased computer hard drives, prohibited email contacts, and inflammatory racial remarks that targeted the state's Hispanic community by the newly elected Gov. Martinez," said the statement from the Attorney General's Office. The release doesn't say whether the Attorney General's Office or another agency would launch such an investigation. Shortly after that statement, King's gubernatorial campaign released its own. " 'It's like peeling an onion that makes you cry,' says Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gary King of the news that Susana Martinez has more skeletons in her closet that are coming to light, "layer after layer." "Now, it is reported that Martinez's hand-picked district attorney has destroyed possible incriminating records from when Martinez was D.A.," the statement continued. " ... We may never know what was in those records -- but their destruction alone raises new, serious questions about Martinez's work as well as that of the people she's put in positions of power." The Martinez campaign responded. "[D'Antonio's] report has nothing to do with the governor," said campaign spokesman Chris Sanchez. "Gary King sat on his hands while Bill Richardson and his cronies fleeced the state for tens of millions of dollars, but now that his campaign has hit the desperation stage, he is feigning outrage that a DA's office has a similar email retention policy as his own office." After Orlando lost the election, she was hired by Martinez's administration and now works for a lawyer for the Department of Public Safety. Earlier this week, she called D'Antonio's report a witch hunt full of "black helicopter conspiracy theories." "The reports from the 3rd Judicial District are very troubling at the least," says AG King. "We have had calls to our office requesting that we investigate whether there was some illegal activity over a certain period of time when Susana Martinez was still the DA and while her successor, Amy Orlando, was still in office." D'Antonio said Wednesday that his investigation did not turn up any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The internal investigation began after the state Democratic Party in April requested any emails related to the first gubernatorial campaign of Martinez. The records request was sparked by a story published earlier this year by Mother Jones magazine that contained allegations that an investigator in the District Attorney's Office ran license plate numbers through law enforcement databases of cars believed to be used by opposition trackers. D'Antonio's investigation turned up a few emails that show Orlando urging the staff member to not tell D'Antonio's incoming staff how to receive an estimated $200,000 in federal grant money; discussing matters related to Martinez's 2010 election and her own 2012 campaign; and telling a Martinez supporter in 2010 that the governor-elect wanted a formal inauguration ball, not "a Mexican affair." Contact Steve Terrell at [email protected]. Read his political blog at www.santafenewmexican.com/news/blogs/politics. ___ (c)2014 The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, N.M.) Visit The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, N.M.) at www.santafenewmexican.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |