E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Friday, August 08, 2008
Lawyer: Block Made Threats
By Raam Wong
Journal Staff Writer
Democratic Public Regulation Commission candidate Jerome Block Jr. was the subject of a restraining order 10 years ago after a Santa Fe attorney accused him of threatening to cut the lawyer's son during a confrontation on the University of New Mexico campus.
A state District Court judge on Sept. 16, 1998, granted S. Barry Paisner a temporary restraining order for his family against Block and two other men, finding they were “a danger to the Paisners because of their demonstrated propensity for abusive, violent and harassing behavior.”
Block, who is now 31, on Thursday denied making the threat or even speaking to Paisner's son as he walked down what he called “Frat Row” at UNM the night of Aug. 28, 1998. Instead, Paisner's son had only been pointed out to him, Block said.
Block, of La Puebla, is running for the Northern New Mexico District 3 seat on the PRC, which oversees electric, gas and water utilities, telecommunications, insurance, pipeline and fire safety.
Block's past legal troubles have come to light in the weeks since he won the June 3 Democratic primary in a competitive six-way race.
Block has faced allegations of disorderly conduct, riding with a drunken driver and aggravated DWI — criminal charges he failed to disclose fully on a Journal questionnaire during the Democratic primary campaign earlier this year. Block has also faced questions over past assertions about his educational background.
Block faces Green Party candidate Rick Lass in the November election.
The protective order came after what Paisner described as a year of harassment of his sons following a July 5, 1997 melee in Santa Fe. Paisner wrote in his restraining order application that about 20 members of a gang known as CPB violently beat his sons with broken bottles, requiring emergency treatment. Block says he was not at the fight.
One of the alleged gang members had his face cut in the fight, and Paisner maintained that the gang member's “associates” repeatedly threatened his sons with retaliation, requiring the restraining order.
In one of the instances of alleged harassment, the complaint says, Paisner accused Block and another man of grabbing his son by the arm and threatening to cut his son at UNM about a year after the fight.
Block, who attended St. Michael's High School, said he had never heard of CPB and that he was never in a gang.
“During that time, I was raising my son and I wasn't around a gang much less associated with one,” Block said.
Block has said he stepped down as the manager of a title insurance company — the insurance industry is regulated by the PRC — to run for the commission seat from northern New Mexico. Both his father and grandfather served on the PRC or its predecessor commission.