Danny Salinas, Sunland Park mayor pro tem
It started with a lapdance and who knows where it’s going to end.
The news out of Sunland Park gets crazier by the day as now the mayor pro tem and the city manager of the town of 14,000 in southern New Mexico have actually been arrested and charged with extorting the guy who was the grinning recipient of the curvaceous features of a topless woman.
But aside from the ribald humor, the case of “Lapdance-gate” has now turned serious, with the city officials facing felony charges, and the incident throwing the impending elections into turmoil because in just nine days (March 6), voters go the polls to choose a new mayor.
One of the candidates is Gerardo Hernandez, who admits that he was the recipient of a lapdance while in his campaign office. Hernandez said he did not ask or hire the woman to perform the dance and when video of the performance ended up in the hands of a local TV station, Hernandez accused political enemies of trying to blackmail him.
“Hernandez said a Spanish-speaking stranger approached him in the Sunland Park City Hall parking lot and threatened to release a sex video of him if he didn’t drop out of the race,” a report in the Las Cruces Sun-News said. Hernandez refused to withdraw.
On Saturday (Feb. 26), state police and investigators with the local district attorney’s office announced that Daniel Salinas, the current mayor pro tem and candidate for the mayorship, was busted along with city manager Jaime Aguilera. Both men were charged with conspiracy to commit extortion, tampering with evidence and conspiracy — charges that could carry a maximum of 7 and a half years in jail. Both men are in jail pending $50,000 bonds.
A few days ago, Salinas was asked on camera by a reporter from KVIA-TV whether he was behind the alleged blackmail threat of Hernandez and denied it.
There’s more. According to blogger Heath Haussamen:
Public Works Director Jesus Dario Hernandez and Martah Alondra Lozano, an assistant temporary human resources employee, have been charged but are not in custody.
Hernandez and Lozano live in El Paso and, unless they turn themselves in, may have to be extradited.
So now, with a March 6th election looming, Sunland Park residents have these mayoral options to ponder:
One candidate who is in jail.
Another who has been seen on TV taking part in a lapdance (candidate Hernandez issued the obligatory statement by those caught in such compromising situations — “I have made mistakes – mistakes that I have acknowledged and continue to work through with the support of my wife and children”).
And a third candidate named Jose Luis Hernandez. He seems to have absolutely no involvement the scandals at all. That, one would think, could help him come Election Day.
That is, unless voters in the area don’t just boycott the election out of disgust.
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Some background:
As we’ve posted before, Sunland Park has had a number of other embarassing incidents in the recent past.
Back in late September, state Rep. Mary Helen Garcia (D-Las Cruces) personally called on the state’s Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) to take the extreme step of intervening and running the Sunland Park city government after she was aghast to watch the name-calling and backbiting at a city council meeting dengenerate into what the editorial board at the Sun-News called “the Jerry Springer show.”
Earlier in 2011, Sunland Park made national headlines when its mayor, Martin Resendiz, admitted that he signed city contracts while drunk.
A couple different media outlets report that Resendiz has not shown up at city hall for several months.