New Mexico State Police Chief addresses federal probe of DWI Sgt.
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New Mexico State Police Chief addresses federal probe of DWI Sgt.
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Chief Weisler said the State Police has now launched an internal affairs investigation, looking for any red flags that officers could have been involved in the corruption scandal to get DWI cases dismissed. But so far, only one State Police Sergeant is on their radar.
'I've been doing this a long time, so you think that you've seen it all, but then something like this happens and you realize that you haven't,' Chief Weisler told KRQE. 'I was shocked and dismayed.'
One of Chief Weisler's top cops when it comes to cracking down on drunk driving is now implicated in a long-running DWI corruption scheme. Sergeant Toby Lafave joined the New Mexico State Police in 2002.
Lafave worked in the DWI unit from 2017 to 2022, handling more than 100 DWI arrests per year. 'We don't look for people to tell us thank you, or the recognition that we do get at times, it is nice to get it though,' Lafave told KRQE in a 2019 interview.
Over the years, Lafave has been the face of the state's 'END DWI' campaign, named Officer of the Year by Mothers Against Drunk Driving twice, Officer of the Year in 2012, and featured in KRQE newscasts in several high-profile DWI cases. Last week, Lafave was placed on leave and put on notice he is now under investigation.
Chief Weisler said it was the FBI who put Lafave on his radar. 'We had a couple of particular cases of Sgt. Lafave that we were looking at more closely,' explained Chief Weisler. 'And then we also received some additional information from the FBI that led to him being put on admin leave last week.'
Weisler said his Internal Affairs team is conducting an analysis of officers who had DWI cases overlap with the now-former defense attorney, Thomas Clear III. Clear is the self-proclaimed 'leader' of the DWI corruption scheme going back to at least 1995, and recently pled guilty to RICO conspiracy charges in federal court.
Clear admitted to working with officers from the Albuquerque Police Department, Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office, and New Mexico State Police. KRQE News 13 went through court records and found that since 2014, Lafave had at least 27 DWI cases with Clear representing the accused drunk drivers. Forty-one percent of those cases were dismissed.
The Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office recently placed Lafave on its 'Giglio' list, meaning Lafave is no longer considered credible in court. As a result of that, the DA's office says it was forced to drop an additional 22 pending DWI cases connected to Lafave.
'First off, I want to apologize for it happening, or for this to even be a suggestion that it happened,' said Chief Weisler. 'Obviously, we'll have to go through the whole process and see what turns out on the other side, but, you know, we will be working day in and day out to regain the trust of the community.'
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