ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A former Albuquerque police officer believes giving up her career is enough punishment for her crimes. The Attorney General’s Office said her career is why she can’t be let off the hook. Now, Vanessa Santillanes is asking for a new prosecutor on her case. KRQE Investigative reporter Ann Pierret sat down with her attorney who didn’t mince words explaining why.
Attorney Brian Pori sounded off Wednesday, three and a half months after the AG charged his client, then-Albuquerque Police Department Officer Vanessa Santillanes, with shoplifting. “I mean, it’s not like she says, that’s not me. I want to go to trial. She resigned her position as an APD detective. She’s accepted responsibility,” said Pori.
Santillanes is facing four misdemeanor counts of shoplifting, accused of stealing from two different Target stores over several months. KRQE first reported about the surveillance footage captured inside the stores earlier this year. One store’s loss prevention specialist said the then-officer used the tactic of “ticket switching” by taking the price tag off a cheaper item and putting it on the more expensive one she bought, allowing her to steal $159.73 from the two Target stores. “The loss is very minor. She’s willing to pay restitution. She’s paid an enormous price for this case. She gave up a ten-year career as an Albuquerque Police Detective, and her service as a police detective is being used to punish her, not to help her,” said Pori.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez sat down with KRQE earlier this year to talk about the Santillanes case and Attorney Pori took issue with that. “I mean, there’s no doubt that this is a political person who is using this case to garner as much free publicity as he can so that he can pursue either re-election as the attorney general or some higher office,” said Pori.
Pori expected the two sides to agree easily on a sentence of diversion, which he said involves counseling, classes on respecting property, paying restitution and staying out of trouble for a period of time, then the case is dismissed. “And that’s a standard disposition for almost any first offender who’s facing a charge of shoplifting,” said Pori.
Instead, he said the AG’s Office offered an agreement that would require Santillanes to plead guilty. She’d have a criminal record and possibly face jail time. Pori won’t accept that but said no one will meet with him to discuss an alternative. “I have tried — three telephone calls, two emails. I showed up in person to the Attorney General’s office. ‘Hey, I’m here to talk about Vanessa’s case.’ Nothing. They refuse. They refuse to meet with me,” said Pori.
So Pori filed a motion, asking the New Mexico Supreme Court to reassign the case to a different prosecutor’s office, claiming both a bias and a conflict of interest. He said Santillanes previously worked on cases with the Office and with Torrez when he was the Bernalillo County District Attorney. “You know, people make mistakes in their life. We’re more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” said Pori. “And yet the Attorney General just wants to pillory her.”
The AG’s Office said the motion to disqualify the office from prosecuting the case has no basis in law. A spokesperson issued a statement calling it a “pathetic attempt to undermine the integrity of a case that demonstrates that no one, not even a police officer, is above the law”
