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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

AG's Document Request to Nonprofit Separate from Bank Probe


Associated Press
      SANTA FE — The attorney general's office says its request for documents from a charitable foundation set up by state Insurance Superintendent Eric Serna is separate from the office's investigation into a contract Serna signed with a bank.
    Spokeswoman Sam Thompson said no timeline has been set to finish the investigation.
    "We understand they would like to move as expeditiously as possible, but we are trying to do a thorough job,'' she said.
    Robert Desiderio, executive director of the Con Alma health foundation, has said the organization would provide the documents to Attorney General Patricia Madrid's office and had nothing to hide.
    Until he resigned last month, Serna headed the board of Con Alma, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 to give grants to health providers.
    The charitable group has received more than $124,000 from Santa Fe-based Century Bank, which has had a contract since 2003 to hold insurance company deposits that are required of firms doing business in the state.
    Madrid's office has been gathering information from the Insurance Division about the contract, which was amended last year to allow a higher fee than state regulations permit. The fee was decreased once the issue arose.
    Serna, who has been placed on paid leave from his state job, has denied doing anything illegal or improper.

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