Former Albuquerque officers plead guilty in DWI corruption case

Two former Albuquerque DWI officers have taken plea deals in one of the largest public corruption cases to hit the state — admitting they worked for years with a prominent attorney and his assistant to get cases dismissed for payoffs.

Honorio Alba Jr. and Joshua Montaño pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering, receiving a bribe, interference with commerce by extortion and conspiracy charges in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

The plea deals come two weeks after private investigator, Ricardo “Rick” Mendez, who worked for defense attorney Thomas Clear III, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges, admitting he and Clear ran an organized operation since 2008 to get DWI cases dismissed.

Alba and Montaño are the first law enforcement officers to be charged in the FBI’s ongoing investigation into what prosecutors call the “DWI Enterprise.” The pair admitted that they took thousands in cash and gifts from Mendez and Clear, recruited other officers into the scheme, and asked supervisors to help keep it under wraps.

U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Alexander Uballez told the Journal on Friday, “This is neither the end of the investigation nor the end of the case.”

“This is not how we normally do things. The way we are approaching this very unique case is very different (from other criminal cases),” he said. Typically, defendants are charged all at once and the resolution of their cases in court can take months.

In this prosecution, Uballez said, “What we are seeing is falling dominoes of people accepting responsibility and being connected with the facts, not just the allegations.”

Clear hasn’t been charged criminally, and Uballez declined to say whether that will happen. He said his office doesn’t comment “about people who haven’t been charged.”

Mendez, 53, in his plea agreement, told federal agents the scheme also involved personnel from the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and New Mexico State Police.

The Albuquerque Police Department has placed 12 officers on leave and 10 have since resigned, retired or been fired as the department conducted its own internal probe into the allegations. BCSO has placed one deputy on leave, and State Police has said it has not determined any of its officers were involved.

Both Montaño and Alba resigned in March before they were scheduled to meet with APD Internal Affairs about the allegations.

The investigation came to light in January 2024 after FBI agents raided the homes of several officers, including Alba and Montaño, Mendez’s home and Clear’s law office.

In the fallout of the investigation, and because the officers’ credibility potentially could be questioned, 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman’s office has dismissed more than 200 DWI cases that were pending at the time of the FBI searches.

Alba was responsible for 67 of the dismissed cases; Montaño had 41, according to a Journal analysis last year. The two former officers emerged last year as among the most prominent targeted by the corruption investigation.

The scheme surfaced in late 2023 after a court employee told his supervisor that Alba pulled him over for DWI and referred him to Mendez and Clear to get the case dismissed. Another suspect came forward after Montaño gave his bracelet to Mendez after a DWI arrest.

Alba had been with APD since at least 2015 and was named Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s 2023 Officer of the Year for New Mexico. Montaño, who joined APD in 2005, survived a serious car crash in 2022 after being hit by a drunken driver. He was also featured in APD recruitment videos.

Attorneys for Alba and Mendez could not be reached Friday.

“Today, Joshua Montaño appeared in Federal Court and fully admitted his involvement in the DWI scandal,” his attorney Lisa Torraco said in a statement. “He regrets his actions and is deeply remorseful. He knows he let down his community and he failed to uphold his duty as a police officer. He apologizes to the community and to his friends and family.”

Focus on Clear

Meanwhile, on Friday, federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint seeking to seize and forfeit Clear’s Northeast Heights law office, alleging it was the hub of the criminal enterprise.

The court filing is the first mention of Clear, usually identified as “co-conspirator 1,” by name as allegedly engaging in the criminal enterprise.

The forfeiture motion states that one goal of the DWI Enterprise was to “grow a client base willing to pay higher fees in exchange for the successful resolution” of the suspect’s DWI offense. Another purpose was to develop a client referral system based on the illegally obtained dismissals of DWI cases.

Moreover, the enterprise intended to “protect, preserve and enhance Clear’s status and reputation as an attorney, thereby allowing Clear to continue growth of the DWI enterprise.”

The civil forfeiture complaint alleges that cash payments were made to law enforcement members of the enterprise at the Albuquerque law office, which had been Clear’s former family home.

At recruitment meetings at the law office, Mendez “would convey the rules for participating in the DWI Enterprise, and one of the rules was to avoid depositing cash into the Officer Members’ bank accounts.”

Cash payments from Clear and Mendez were also made to officer members at locations other than the law office, according to the complaint.

Clear, through attorney Thomas Clark, has informed chief U.S. District Judge Kenneth Gonzales that he changed his status with the New Mexico State Bar from active to inactive last month. And he hasn’t been actively engaged in the practice of law in New Mexico since about June, and not in federal court since April of last year. Clear also asserted the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Judge Gonzales, noting news articles and Mendez’s plea, asked Clear to formally state why he shouldn’t be disciplined.

Clear, in turn, has asked the judge to either allow him to resign as a member of the bar, be suspended for an indefinite period of time or hold off taking any disciplinary action until Clear asks to resign, according to his response.

Plea deals

Montaño admitted in his plea agreement that he began working with Mendez and Clear after joining the DWI unit in 2017. Alba said he became an officer in the DWI unit in 2017 and got involved in the scheme a year later.

Both officers admitted to “at least two acts of racketeering” each and detail four separate instances in which they were paid by Mendez to let DWI cases get dismissed, including one in which the drunken driver was an acquaintance of one of the officers involved in the scheme and was referred to Clear’s law firm by that officer, according to the plea agreements.

Alba and Montaño both stated that as part of the scheme, they would release DWI suspects without booking them into jail or filing charges, often giving Mendez the suspects’ phone numbers.

The plea agreements state the enterprise changed after the courts suspended pretrial interviews in 2022, the interviews they would miss in order to get cases dismissed. Alba and Montaño admitted they “worked out another method” with Clear and Mendez to miss DWI motion hearings or trial settings. Both officers said they also coordinated with Mendez and Clear to schedule what hearings or interviews they would miss for the DWI case to be dismissed.

Montaño stated that Mendez was his go-to for arranging payments through the scheme, and he was paid in cash as well as free hotel rooms, meals and “free legal representation for my family and friends” by Clear, according to the plea agreement.

Alba — who said Mendez paid him in cash, tires and a diamond ring — admitted that “on at least one occasion” he was paid by Clear directly, according to his plea agreement.

In his plea agreement, Alba admitted that he would even deliver payments to other involved officers on behalf of Clear and Mendez. Alba admitted he helped recruit officers into the scheme and personally introduced them to Mendez and Clear and warned the pair which officers to “avoid attempting to recruit” as they may report the activity.

Alba admitted that he, Clear and Mendez also asked senior APD officers who had been involved in the scheme “to use their positions and influence” to ensure the officers involved were not exposed, according to the plea agreement. Alba asked these senior officers for help in the fall of 2023 when a complaint was filed against him with the Civilian Police Oversight Agency, his plea agreement stated.

On Friday, APD Chief Harold Medina said in a statement that he “had faith that the federal investigation would get to this point and hold these officers accountable for their criminal conduct.”

“I wish I could say this is the end point, but we continue to discover details of this conspiracy and those who participated in it,” Medina said. “We will leave no stone unturned. I hope others who were part of this conspiracy pay close attention to the prison sentences these officers agreed to serve in exchange for their cooperation.”

The officers could face up to 110 years in prison, according to the plea agreements.