Honored prosecutor alleges retaliation

In November, Phyllis Bowman was honored with the White Collar Crime Award by the State Bar of New Mexico for her work as a prosecutor.

But just the month before, according to Bowman, she was forced from her job as a lawyer at the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, where she worked as a prosecutor for the Securities Division.

She says she resigned after being retaliated against by department Superintendent J. Dee Dennis and then-Securities Director Daniel Tanaka for her knowledge of their incompetence and wrongdoing.

Bowman says she had been stripped of most her duties, had her office taken away and was ordered to communicate with only her immediate supervisor and then only in writing.

She has since filed a public records lawsuit against the department and is considering another lawsuit under the Whistleblower Protection Act, which prohibits retaliation against public employees who allege wrongdoing.

You might remember the names of Dennis and Tanaka from the investigation last year of a forged 2011 audit at the New Mexico Finance Authority.

Greg Campbell, NMFA’s former controller, who had admitted forging the audit, was arrested, indicted and pleaded guilty. He was given probation.

But Tanaka’s office also arrested John Duff, then the authority’s chief operating officer, on charges unrelated to the forged audit. Duff was accused of misrepresenting NMFA’s finances by wrongly accounting for money that was transferred from the authority to the state general fund to help with a budget crunch.

Tanaka accused Duff of cooking the books at NMFA, but a grand jury refused a request by his office to indict Duff. He was later dismissed from his authority job.

An attorney for Duff called Tanaka incompetent and ignorant, and some legislators also questioned his conduct in the investigation.

Gov. Susana Martinez appointed Tanaka in April 2011 to head the Securities Division, where he had worked as an agent since 2008. The appointment required Senate confirmation, but Tanaka resigned Friday. He didn’t say why he quit, according to a spokesman.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, said Dennis met with individual senators last week concerning Tanaka’s pending confirmation.

Sanchez said senators from both political parties were concerned Tanaka should have conducted more investigation before bringing the charges against Duff.

“I think he (Dennis) got the message,” the senator said.

Tanaka’s resignation came a day after I inquired with the Regulation and Licensing Department about the allegations by Bowman.

In a brief prepared statement, the department said Bowman’s allegations “are not accurate.”

Bowman alleges she was retaliated against in part because Dennis believed she was a source for columns I wrote about his and Tanaka’s actions in the NMFA investigation.

Bowman says that’s not the case and, for the record, I don’t talk about confidential sources.

Bowman has worked as a lawyer and prosecutor in state government for more than 20 years, including five years with the Regulation and Licensing Department. She now heads the Enforcement Bureau for the Workers’ Compensation Administration.

Bowman was nominated for the White Collar Crime Award by an Albuquerque police detective and her former boss and a fellow prosecutor at the state Insurance Fraud Bureau, where she worked prior to the Securities Division.

Bowman’s allegations are laid out in the lawsuit she filed last month against Regulation and Licensing and in a separate signed affidavit.

In the lawsuit, Bowman is seeking copies of two memos about her prepared by Tanaka. She alleges Regulation and Licensing has refused to provide copies in violation of the Inspection of Public Records Act.

Bowman says that shortly after Tanaka was named head of Securities, she was transferred from the division to what was a nonexistent legal department at Regulation and Licensing. A few couple months later, she was given the position of assistant general counsel for the department.

The statement by Regulation and Licensing says Bowman was never transferred to any job contrary to her wishes.

The lawsuit says that before Bowman resigned, she told Regulation and Licensing officials that her transfer to the nonexistent legal department was illegal and that Tanaka lacked the experience, knowledge and maturity to run the Securities Division.

Bowman says Tanaka once told her, “You don’t understand. We cops live to arrest criminals.”

She says she also advised Regulation and Licensing that the department had engaged in selective prosecution of former business rivals of Dennis or his friends and had alleged violations of government purchasing laws by a rival contractor working on the state’s spaceport.

Bowman’s attorney Diane Garrity says her client isn’t entirely sure why she was targeted by Dennis and Tanaka, but “She believes it is due to her knowledge of ongoing incompetence and malfeasance in office by Mr. Dennis and Mr. Tanaka and because her efforts as an attorney to convince RLD to follow the law and proper procedures were in conflict with Mr. Dennis’ and Mr. Tanaka’s personal agendas.”

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Thom Cole at tcole@abqjournal.com or 505-992-6280 in Santa Fe. Go to ABQjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal