N.M. Supreme Court to decide on appeal of ex-tax chief's overturned convictions
May 14—The New Mexico Supreme Court will decide whether to reaffirm a former state Cabinet secretary's convictions in a yearslong corruption case or uphold an appeals court's reversal based on the criminal statute of limitations.
A prosecutor from the state Department of Justice delivered oral arguments Tuesday morning, asking justices to reverse the New Mexico Court of Appeals' decision to overturn former Taxation and Revenue Secretary Demesia Padilla's convictions on several felony counts stemming from allegations dating back to 2011.
Padilla's 2021 conviction was overturned in March 2023 by a divided opinion by the appeals court on the basis that prosecutors had violated the statute of limitations when they refiled the case.
Padilla, who had served as the state's tax chief under former Gov. Susana Martinez, resigned in 2016 amid a criminal investigation by then-Attorney General Hector Balderas.
In charges filed in 2018, prosecutors from what was then the state Attorney General's Office accused Padilla of stealing more than $25,000 from a Bernalillo-based grading and trucking firm by linking her credit card to the company's account.
Several of the charges filed by the agency, now called the Department of Justice, were dismissed without prejudice by a state District Court in Santa Fe and then refiled in Sandoval County, where a judge found the alleged crimes would have occurred. Padilla was convicted by a jury there on two counts of embezzlement and a count of computer access with intent to defraud or embezzle.
She was sentenced in 2021 to nine years in prison for each count of embezzlement and five years of supervised probation, but 13th Judicial District Judge Cindy Mercer suspended the 18 years of imprisonment.
Padilla's defense attorney, Elizabeth Harrion, argued Tuesday the statute of limitations for embezzlement — six years — had passed before a grand jury indicted her in Sandoval County.
"The simple fact, by the calendar, is that the August 2019 indictment was brought outside of the six years of the alleged commission of that crime," Harrison told the Supreme Court.
Court of Appeals Judge Megan Duffy argued last year in a dissenting opinion the clock had stopped on the statute of limitations while the charges were pending in Santa Fe County and restarted again when they were dismissed, which would put the Sandoval County indictment within the allowable time frame.
Chief Deputy Attorney General James Grayson cited case law from New Mexico and other states in his argument Tuesday, maintaining the criminal case against Padilla already had been filed when the statute of limitations expired in 2019.
"How can the statute of limitations expire while the case is still pending?" Grayson told the court. "It can't."
But justices expressed skepticism at Grayson's argument, particularly due to the language of a statute on the "tolling" of time limitations, which was referenced heavily by Padilla's attorneys. The provision states the clock on the statute of limitations can only be stopped and started between two complaints or indictments if the later indictment is brought within five years of the alleged crime.
Justice Briana Zamora said the court was "basically in a position where we would have to reword the statute or revise the five-year limitation that's in it, to find for the state. I'm having trouble with that."
