WATCH: DWI cases Albuquerque officers and paralegal made disappear

Yahoo

26-03-2025

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – How many drunk drivers never faced charges over the last two decades as part of the so-called 'DWI Enterprise' in New Mexico? That's an answer we may never know because key players in the scheme admitted they got drivers to pay them off in exchange for not filing charges against them.
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In their confessions, now-former Albuquerque Police officers Joshua Montaño and Honorio Alba, Jr., and the paralegal they were working with, Ricardo 'Rick'' Mendez, told federal investigators about two of those unfiled drunk driving cases. KRQE Investigates obtained video of those arrests, pinpointing the two cases that matched based on time frames, arresting officers, initials of the drivers mentioned, plus a check of court records.
Both cases were so serious that the drivers ended up in the hospital, which, as it turns out, made it even easier for them to fall off the radar.
KRQE Investigates is not naming the drivers because neither faced charges after Montaño and Alba admitted they got the drivers to pay them off.
'This person could have killed us. He could have killed someone else,' Pam Roy told KRQE Investigative Reporter Ann Pierret. She vividly remembered the night she witnessed a suspected drunk driver smash his car onto northbound I-25 at the Paseo del Norte off-ramp. 'Oh, my goodness, like it was yesterday,' she added.
Roy is the one who called 911 that February night in 2022. In lapel video from that night, which was obtained by KRQE Investigates, Roy is heard telling a responding officer what happened.
Roy: 'I mean, I didn't see it until he actually came up off that guardrail and flipped over onto the highway on the side. Um, and you can see he came nose down, and then the car flipped over.'Officer: 'Okay.'Roy: 'I am surprised he got up.'Officer: 'Pretty lucky.'Roy: 'Oh my God, yeah.'
When Roy left the scene, she said she assumed the case was in good hands. 'Thinking that when you drive away, that all those responders who showed up, all those people who were there, who chose a path of caring for other people, were going to take care of this person, get them to the hospital, and then see that due diligence down that path,' she explained.
But now, three years later, KRQE Investigative Reporter Ann Pierret let her know that due diligence didn't happen. The reason why? Federal court documents show the driver played a role in a much larger scheme focused on officers and an Albuquerque law firm profiting off making DWI cases disappear— what the feds have dubbed the 'DWI enterprise.'
Because responding officers suspected the driver was intoxicated, at the time, they called in Officer Montaño from APD's DWI Unit.
His lapel footage obtained by KRQE Investigates showed him interacting with the driver at the hospital. The man was in a neck brace, and his whole body was roughed up. He could barely speak to the officer.
Officer Montaño: 'I could smell some alcohol, man. How much did you drink tonight?'Driver: '(Inaudible) I'm sorry I (inaudible) had a little bit.'Officer Montaño: 'A little bit?'Driver: 'Yes.'
Montaño conducted a few field sobriety tests, which he said helped him determine the man was driving drunk. 'I have to place you under arrest for DWI,' Montaño told the driver.
But because the driver was in the hospital, it's APD protocol that Montaño would send a criminal summons in the mail rather than take him to jail that night. So, Montaño got the man's information, and then he explained to the driver, 'You're no longer in custody; you may get some paperwork in the mail in a couple weeks.'
Instead, Montaño admitted he gave the driver's contact information to Albuquerque paralegal Mendez. Mendez confessed he had contacted the driver and got him to pay in exchange for Montaño not filing charges. To make that happen, Montaño said he got a portion of the driver's payment.
No summons was sent. If it had been, the police report showed that the driver would have been facing a third-offense DWI.
Albuquerque police sergeant allegedly connected to DWI scheme resigns
Repeat offenders aren't the only ones who caught a break with an offer to participate in the DWI scheme.
In April 2022, APD DWI Unit member Officer Alba was called to conduct field sobriety tests on a driver who crashed his vehicle into a pole on Lomas Boulevard. Court records show the driver had zero criminal record, and it would remain that way.
In lapel video from that incident, which was obtained by KRQE Investigates, Alba is heard questioning the driver.
Officer Alba: 'Okay, how much did you have to drink tonight?'Driver: 'Two drinks.'
Alba asked the man for his driver's license. In another responding officer's lapel video, we see Alba place the ID in his belt and never see him return it to the driver. In his admission of guilt to the feds, Alba told investigators he often handed off licenses to Mendez. So it's believed that may have been how Mendez got in touch with this driver to offer the scheme.
Alba did arrest the driver after observing 'signs of impairment' during the field sobriety tests. He drove the man to the Prisoner Transport Center and wrote in his police report that the man blew a 0.22 on the breathalyzer test twice. But this driver also spent the night in the hospital instead of a jail cell. 'I got to take you to the hospital based on your vehicle having airbag deployments. It's the jail's rules, okay?' Alba explained.
But rather than issuing a criminal summons for drunk driving, Alba confessed that he received money from the driver, funneled through Mendez, in exchange for never filing charges.
In a prior one-on-one interview with Raul Bujanda, special agent in charge of New Mexico's FBI, Pierret asked whether investigators would ever be able to determine how many drivers avoided charges.
Bujanda acknowledged that it's possible even the key players don't know, as they were focused on collecting as many payments as possible rather than keeping track of how many people they let off the hook.
He added that now knowing some drivers never faced charges makes it difficult to measure the scheme's impact on the Albuquerque community.
'These were individuals that should never have been on the road to begin with, and we let them get off the hook. So, what does that mean? They were never held accountable. The likelihood that they decided the following day, once this all was behind them, to go ahead and do the same thing all over again? It's highly likely, and who knows what might have happened at that point? The things that we don't know, the things that we haven't been able to connect together—someone that was released and got off the hook, so to speak, because of the scheme and ended up harming someone else, whether it was in a car accident or even taking someone's life. I mean, I don't even want to go there, but I mean, it's a very high possibility,' Bujanda said.
The Albuquerque Police Department confirmed that it is reviewing documented cases—like these two—that did not result in charges.
Federal investigators want to hear from you if you were offered or participated in the scheme. To reach the FBI Albuquerque Office directly, call 505-889-1300.
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