May 31--An assistant Bernalillo County district attorney has resigned and three secretaries for the DA's Office have been suspended without pay over allegations they were using placards for handicapped parking not issued to them to park illegally, officials said.
The discipline, released to the Journal after a public records request, brings to six the number of DA's Office employees suspended without pay for misconduct and to two the number of resignations amid various allegations this year.
The secretaries -- Gloria Libutti, Rose Drane and Patricia Glaspie -- each received a five-day suspension. If any of them is involved in any more misconduct during the next six months, she will be suspended an additional five days.
The prosecutor, Anthony Griego, resigned effective May 24, the document states.
The placard debacle, which became public after a KRQETV investigation, was the second time Griego had been the focus of an internal investigation this year.
In February, he was one of three assistant district attorneys suspended and ordered to attend alcohol awareness classes after the prosecutors got drunk at a bowling alley and wound up in a heated exchange with the business's staff.
"Any kind of misconduct inside or outside the workplace affects an employee's ability to do his or her job with integrity," DA Kari Brandenburg said Wednesday. "We felt that we needed to act strongly and swiftly, and that's what we've tried to do."
Alisha Maestas, the deputy DA assigned to felony domestic violence cases, resigned earlier this month after she was arrested on charges of assaulting a sheriff's deputy.
"I'd like to point out that with all these incidents this year, we're talking about less than 3 percent of our employees," Brandenburg said. "That means more than 97 percent are going above and beyond the call of duty. And as far as the discipline is concerned, a suspension if you make $10 million a year, well, what's five days? But our employees are some of the lowest paid in the state, so a suspension without pay is huge."
Brandenburg said a KRQETV reporter made her aware of allegations that six of her employees were using handicapped placards that weren't assigned to them to park illegally during the past few months.
Internal investigations cleared two of the employees, Brandenburg said, and resulted in discipline for three. Griego already had a mark against him from the bowling alley incident, and he chose to resign last week, she said.
K RQE's invest igat ion revealed that Griego, Libutti, Drane and Glaspie had used the placards as many as three or four times each, Brandenburg said.
"There were multiple offenses," she said. "They all should have known better."
Bra ndenbu rg sa id she turned over everything she had on the case to the Albuquerque Police Department for a criminal investigation.
Copyright 2012 - Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
