KRQE Investigates looks into former APD officer's connection to DWI scheme
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – On Friday former Albuquerque Police Department officers Honorio Alba Jr. and Joshua Montaño, involved in the DWI dismissal scandal, pleaded guilty. In federal court, the former officers pleaded guilty to RICO conspiracy, bribery, and conspiracy to commit extortion.
Honorio Alba Jr. was one of the first members of the Albuquerque Police Department's (APD) DWI unit put on administrative leave in January 2024. He quit about a month later and the paperwork has already been filed to revoke his police certification.
APD began internally investigating its longtime DWI officer after the feds served a search warrant on his home one year ago. That same day the US attorney asked his name be added to the Giglio List, deeming Alba no longer a credible witness in court. With that, the Bernalillo County District Attorney had to dismiss 99 of his pending drunk driving cases dating back to 2015.
Former APD officers charged, plead guilty in DWI Unit scandal
Back in July 2023, Albuquerque police proudly shared that Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) named Honorio Alba Jr. their officer of the year for the state of New Mexico. Just a few months later in November 2023, APD would learn from a citizen complaint that Alba is suspected of being a major player in a public corruption scandal – what the feds have dubbed the DWI Enterprise – and how it worked.
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This letter to the Civilian Police Oversight Agency accuses Alba of offering the scheme to a man he'd arrested for driving drunk by putting him in contact with a specific attorney, 'Who, if hired, would ensure that no court case would be filed in court by APD.' Since officers are informed about citizen complaints, the department jumped to quash that internal affairs investigation in December 2023.
One month later, the FBI raided Alba's Edgewood home. The feds had already been investigating his role in the conspiracy and relationship with that attorney, Thomas Clear III, and Clear's paralegal Rick Mendez.
KRQE previously looked through six years of Clear's DWI cases and found from 2018 through 2023, 25 of his clients pulled over by Alba all had their cases dismissed. In a majority of those, court records show Alba failed to appear at court hearings, prompting the judge to drop the case.
Mendez already confessed. That was one way the law firm worked with officers to make DWI cases disappear. He also paid them not to file charges for clients funneled their way. This can be seen viewing body camera footage of Alba's other arrests.
Governor, state's top cop respond to DWI corruption scheme
Alba would tell the person he'd just detained that the prisoner transport center, which they were currently inside, was closed, so he couldn't book them into jail that night. Even in the case of a repeat drunk driver, who was pulled over driving down Central with his car on fire, and at least two open containers of alcohol inside, and according to the police report, later blew three times the legal limit on an alcohol breath test.
Alba would let both of these suspected drunk drivers go and wait, in the woman's case two days, and in the other's, two weeks before filing charges.
KRQE Investigates stopped by Alba's house to try to speak with him and found it empty with a For Sale sign. Court records show the bank went after him for not paying his mortgage. Where the money Alba received in the scheme went is still unknown.
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