Workers accused of doing favors, stealing

SANTA FE (KRQE) - What started as a probe into one Santa Fe city worker stealing money from parking meters turned into a full-blown investigation into some high-ranking officials, including the city manager and police chief.

The whistleblower, who is a former parking division supervisor, accuses city workers of helping themselves to meter money to charges of making parking tickets disappear. But City Manager Robert Romero said most of the claims are ridiculous.

The city of Santa Fe collects about $5 million a year in parking fees and fines, according to Romero. That amount of cash is handled by a few city workers. Romero admits tens of thousands of dollars may have been embezzled over the years.

"We're constantly checking and trying to improve our cash controls," said Romero.

Last June, one employee was caught on video taking money from a register at the Water Street parking lot, then pocketing it. Another investigation was launched in February 2011 into another worker who would collect coins from the meters, then exchange that for cash at Century Bank. According to the police report, controls were so lax at the parking division that employees may have swindled between $80,000 to upwards of more than $300,000 over five years.

The latest case was Monday, when police busted two more people for stealing money from a city parking lot. Justin Rael and Jeremy Brooks, who are not city employees but contract with the city of Santa Fe, were arrested for taking a money back with about $1,000 inside from the City Hall/Convention Center parking lot on August 6. Police said the men told officers they discussed how easy it would be to steal the money. Both are charged with burglary and conspiracy.

"We're trying to put all measures in place to eliminate this," said Romero.

But that police investigation has led to an even bigger scandal. One whistleblower claims city higher-ups are part of the problem, claiming Romero himself would make tickets disappear.

"Before he was city manager, his buddies would have parking tickets and they'd give it to him. They were dismissing tickets left and right," he said. "Everyone is taking care of each other's back."

The man claims his supervisors would turn a blind eye when he would bring up the allegations. He even points fingers at current Police Chief Raymond Rael, whose job was to look into employees' bad behavior while he was at the city's Human Resources Division.

But Rael said the claims are ridiculous, saying the whistleblower's allegations were criminal and were not handled by the Human Resources Division.

Romero also said he never dismissed parking tickets for himself or friends. Romero said he has a parking permit that allows him to legally park in any city spot. He said when he was mistakenly given a ticket, a judge would appropriately dismiss it.

"To do city business, we have a pass that allows us to park at any city parking spot, so there would be no need for me to cancel or have one of my parking citations dismissed," said Romero.

But the whistleblower said that's a lie.

"We need to clean up the city of Santa Fe. People of Santa Fe need to find out who do we have downtown," said Romero.

The whistleblower said he was fired two years ago because he kept pressing his managers with fraud.

Citing a conflict of interest, Santa Fe Police have turned the case over to State Police to investigate.