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Thursday, April 08, 2010
Commissioner Denies Attack
By Dan Boyd
Journal Capitol Bureau
GALLUP — New Mexico Public Regulation Commissioner Carol Sloan took the stand in her felony assault trial Wednesday to deny prosecutors' charges that she attacked a former family friend with a river rock during a bout of jealous rage.
Speaking calmly and without visible emotion in an 11th Judicial District courtroom, Sloan admitted she confronted Brenda Yazzie last July at Yazzie's Gallup apartment and called her a "toothless old whore" after Sloan discovered that her husband and Yazzie had been exchanging phone calls.
Sloan said that she assumed Yazzie and her husband were having an affair but that she never kicked the other woman or hit her with a rock.
"I was devastated because of the fact I was betrayed," she told jurors Wednesday. "I'm pretty sure any normal person would have wanted to go talk to her like I tried to do."
Sloan, a Democrat who has served on the five-member PRC since 2006, faces two felony charges — another charge was reduced to a misdemeanor — in connection with the July 2009 incident, which allegedly left Yazzie bruised and bleeding from a head wound.
Attorneys on both sides are expected to make their closing arguments today. If convicted of all charges, Sloan could face up to 12 years in prison.
Sloan hadn't spoken publicly about the events of July 14, 2009, until Wednesday, the third day of her trial in the courtroom of District Judge Louis DePauli.
She said Wednesday that Yazzie tried to scratch her face after Sloan arrived at Yazzie's apartment with her PRC executive assistant, Luis Ledezma, in tow and accused Yazzie of sleeping with her husband.
Sloan said she defended herself by grabbing Yazzie's arm and pushing her back into her apartment. She said she and Ledezma then left the scene.
During cross-examination, when McKinley County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jim Bierly showed Sloan pictures of Yazzie in bloodstained clothes and with bruises on her stomach, Sloan testified she'd never seen Yazzie in such a condition.
Bierly also asked Sloan why she had claimed Yazzie was "prostituting" herself in a call Sloan made to the manager of Yazzie's apartment complex on the day of the alleged assault.
"I had made up my mind because the phone calls were there ... to a married man," Sloan testified. "That's not right."
Before Sloan took the stand Wednesday, Ledezma testified he tried to dissuade Sloan from going to Yazzie's apartment.
He backed up Sloan's claim that she didn't attack Yazzie with a rock and said Yazzie wasn't wearing the same clothes when he saw her as she was in the picture shown by prosecutors.
However, another prosecutor in the case, Lyndy Bennett, portrayed Ledezma as a loyal exempt employee with close personal ties to Sloan who didn't immediately go to authorities with his account.
Sloan's defense attorneys objected Wednesday to prosecution questions about Sloan's salary on the PRC — which Sloan eventually said is about $90,000 annually — and whether she'd be forced to resign if convicted of the charges against her.
If convicted of a felony, Sloan, who is seeking re-election, wouldn't automatically be forced to resign, but she would not be eligible for re-election.
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