Secretary of State Duran seeks to bump AG from prosecution
SANTA FE – The criminal case against Secretary of State Dianna Duran has taken new twists, with Duran’s attorney asking a judge late Wednesday to disqualify the office of Attorney General Hector Balderas from handling the case due to alleged bias and recent acrimony between the two statewide elected officials.
Meanwhile, Balderas has said his office will no longer represent the Secretary of State’s Office, returning 31 cases Duran’s office had referred to the AG for further investigation. Most of those cases involve instances in which candidates filed delinquent campaign finance reports.
The motion seeking to disqualify the AG’s Office from prosecuting Duran argues that Balderas has a conflict of interest due to his past working relationship with the secretary of state, while also arguing he appears to have a political “vendetta” against Duran.
“This perversion of the criminal justice system can be seen as nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to seek retribution of the most punitive kind against Ms. Duran,” the secretary of state’s lawyer wrote in the motion, which says Duran intends to call two lawyers in the Attorney General’s Office as witnesses in the case.
Read more: http://www.abqjournal.com/651951