Albuquerque Police Investigate Source of Solomon Pena’s Campaign Donations

January 19 – Albuquerque police investigate the possibility of criminal activity related to campaign donations of disgraced House of Representatives candidate Solomon Peña as part of an investigation into a series of shootings he is accused of organizing in the homes of Democratic politicians.

A press release issued Thursday said Albuquerque detectives have uncovered “potential illegal activity” related to donations made by Jose Trujillo, another person police say is suspected of the shooting, and Trujillo’s mother.

According to police and state campaign finance records, Trujillo donated $5,155 to Pena between the primary and the general election, and his mother, Melanie Griego, donated $4,000 to Pena’s campaign during the general election. Reports say that Trujillo works as a cashier.

Police said Trujillo and Griego’s donations were listed from the same address in southwest Albuquerque and accounted for about 40% of the total raised by Republican Pena during his failed campaign in the state’s 14th district.

Detectives are trying to determine if the money came from drug trafficking and if any campaign laws were broken because of the donations, police said in a news release.

Although online court records do not show that Trujillo was charged with the alleged shooting conspiracy, he was arrested in the early hours of Jan. 3 — shortly after the shooting at State Senator Linda Lopez’s home in Albuquerque — by Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies after a traffic stop.

Police said Trujillo’s Nissan Maxima was found to contain 893 fentanyl tablets, along with $3,036 in cash and two handguns.

Investigators determined that Nissan was registered to Pena and tied one of the guns to the shooting at Lopez’s home, according to a criminal lawsuit filed late Monday against Pena filed in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court.

The complaint mentions other named and unnamed alleged accomplices, but so far no one has been charged with the high-profile shooting between December 4 and January 3. Police called the shooting politically motivated attacks by a man who refused to acknowledge the results. of his election.

The story goes on

Pena’s campaign raised a total of $9,493.32 in donations during the 2022 primary election cycle and $14,166.51 in the general election.

His biggest supporter of the general election was Jalapeño Corp., a company owned by oilman and former state GOP chairman Harvey Yates, which donated $5,000 to Pena on September 28. in 2022 alone, his company donated more than $150,000 in political donations, mostly to Republicans but also to a few conservative Democrats in contested primaries.

According to campaign finance reports, Peña supported Republican Secretary of State candidate Audrey Trujillo and was her campaign’s second-largest contributor. He gave her $4,664 for her unsuccessful campaign.

Peña gave much smaller amounts to four other Republican candidates.

Pena’s other big supporter was Michael Fletcher, who gave him $2,875 during the primaries and $1,850 during the general election cycle, according to campaign finance reports. The records list Fletcher as a security guard.

Peña, a convicted felon, is accused of masterminding the shootings at the homes of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adrianne Barboa, newly elected Speaker of the House Javier Martinez, then Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley and Lopez after trying to convince them in his November election against the incumbent Democrat. Representative Miguel Garcia was rigged.

His campaign for the State House came to an end when he lost to Garcia with just 26% of the vote.

On Monday, he was arrested by an Albuquerque SWAT team and appeared in court on Wednesday, remotely in shackles.

The judge said he would remain in custody pending a hearing to determine whether he should be jailed pending trial.

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina noted in a statement Wednesday that a judicial assessment recommends that Peña be released pending trial, which Medina called an example of a broken criminal justice system in need of reform.

“It is alleged that this suspect hired hitmen to bombard the homes of elected officials with life-threatening firearms,” Medina said in a statement.

Assistant City Editor Nathan Brown contributed to this report.

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