DA sheds light on cases, looks back at 2016

Eighth Judicial District Attorney Donald Gallegos won his re-election this year in a tight race against opponent Paul Sanchez – clinching victory by an 18-vote margin.

Now in his fifth term as chief prosecutor, Gallegos sat down with The Taos News to talk about many of the “major food groups” that flow through his office: guns, drugs, homicides and suicides — including old and new trends he’s seen emerge after 16 years at the post.

How’s 2016 been for you?

It’s been a rough year. The election was tough. I barely squeaked by that. I’ve had turnover here. We’ve had budget cuts. I have turnover happening in Ratón. Hiring people is the biggest obstacle in this office – hiring people and then keeping them. And it’s been that way since I took over. It was that way for my predecessors.

Anything else that stood out?

I’m glad to get back to work. This year, we were cut by 3 percent on our budget, which is about $88,000. And I may get cut again depending on how the session goes.

A big story this year was that of Jonathan Stuart Bourg, who died of an overdose July 28 in jail. We understand that a James Gallegos has been indicted in the case.

We’ve done cases before that have involved providing narcotics to others that result in their death. The one that stands out is Dashiell Pala. That’s been a few years now – five years ago – or somewhere around that time frame. The evidence that we have in this case is that [James Gallegos] provided the substance to the victim, which looks like it was brown tar heroin. On any case where we have evidence that someone has provided an addict with a substance and it leads to their death, we will charge.

Do you know how the drugs got into the jail?

I don’t have that information right now.

What’s the history of contraband in the jail?

We’ve had a history going back many years. Suboxone is one of the easier ones to smuggle because it comes in strips – like those Listerine strips – and so some people will kind of hide it in spines of books. Another one that we’ve seen is when it’s smuggled in on stamps or anywhere where you can slip a very thin, paper-like substance. And Suboxone – even though we’ve heard from many experts in the medical field that it’s not addictive – there’s a lot of it out there. We’ve seen everything from pot to meth to heroin to [painkillers] – anything that can be crushed into a powder.

Anything else about the Bourg case you can share?

It’s been charged as involuntary manslaughter, which is the commission of an act which could be considered grossly negligent. Or it could even be a lawful act, but it’s done in a reckless or negligent manner. And so, therefore, it doesn’t rise to the higher levels of intentional homicide, like voluntary manslaughter or second-degree murder or first-degree murder. Our allegations are that giving a substance to a known addict – or even an unknown addict – providing a potentially lethal substance to somebody obviously carries some liability with it. And whether it is or not will be up to a jury.

Is suicide a possibility in this case?

Well, that’s probably what the defense is going to say: “Hey, nobody forced this guy to take the drugs. It’s no different than going and buying a bunch of NyQuil at the pharmacy and drowning yourself in it or buying a bunch of liquor and getting alcohol poisoning.”

Talk about the heroin drug ring bust in 2015 involving Ivan Romero. Has the plea deal been accepted yet?

I understand that it has. That case was actually initiated and developed with involvement from this office. It goes back quite a few years. It actually made it to the fed side based on what we had initiated. I’ve been in contact with the DEA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office constantly on it. There was back and forth about the potential plea and everything else that’s been going on.

Did this bust impact the heroin trade in Taos County?

It had a huge impact. Everything dried up. But like with anything else, there were plenty of people waiting in the wings to take over. In fact, I would not be surprised if the amount of drugs being trafficked are now back to the levels that they were before these guys got taken out – or at least close to it. That’s the way the cartels work. If you take away a distributor – an interruption in their supply – they’re going to fill that spot real quick.

With whoever is next in line in the hierarchy?

Yes, and they probably already have someone identified or someone will make themselves available. Maybe they’ve already proved themselves in some other way. It’s just a really glaring example of how quickly the supply can be made available to meet the demand. And, unfortunately, there’s an ever-increasing demand here.

Which cartel, specifically, do you believe is manufacturing and supplying these drugs?

It seems to be mostly the Sinaloa Cartel that’s been supplying up here. That’s based on the intel that we’ve had lately.

What’s the consensus on how the drug trade can be dealt a crippling blow?

Well, if you reduce the demand, then there’s nowhere for the supply to go. That’s the easy answer. But the practical answer? If you make life tough enough for these people, if we had the kinds of narcotics task forces and agencies that can be on top of these people all the time, after a while, any good business person is going to say, “My losses are too great. I’m getting out of there.”

I would never tell you that I’m really an expert on anything other than having a lot of experience prosecuting. But the prosecutions are almost nothing. We can prosecute. We can get convictions, but then what do you do with them? There’s a growing sentiment around this country that we need to reduce prison and jail populations. If you were to counter that with halfway houses, treatment centers that are effective, then sure. But if not, are you going to want that heroin addict out on the street, where he’s going to steal your car or your jewelry or your TV? It’s a truly interesting national and local dilemma that a lot of the policymakers are wrestling with right now.

Taos has no halfway houses or treatment centers – not even a detox center at present.

Right. I know some of my friends say that you can’t throw money at everything. I certainly agree with that to an extent. But how the heck are you going to have effective treatment without money? And who’s going to do that funding? It surely hasn’t come from the private sector.

How effective do you believe treatment for heroin addiction is?

Treatment for heroin is one of the better ones out there. Most of the people in law enforcement will tell you that the odds of a heroin addict becoming clean are pretty good compared to meth. And, of course, heroin addicts share a lot of the same symptomatology as other opiates – the painkillers, the legal prescriptions – but meth is problematic. I don’t know that there’s an effective treatment modality for methamphetamine. I know people who have gone cold turkey – you’re going to get those, but there’s not a lot. Heroin is treatable, and education is always going to be key in combating addiction.

When did you first notice that Taos had become inundated with these types of drugs?

Heroin, meth – we have been flooded with substances. The streets are flooded with whatever they can bring in here. I’d say that’s happened within the last five years. It’s definitely increased. We didn’t see heroin much before then. Our biggest problem was cocaine for the longest time. And then we started seeing a lot of meth. Early on, it was the cookers, you know? But then we got some laws passed. But then the cartels started bringing in meth and just flooding the area. The super labs in Mexico are turning out meth like crazy.

Overall, are you happy with last year’s heroin bust?

Oh, yeah. I’ve known these guys for a long time. I’ve prosecuted Ivan Romero since he was a kid. Everybody back then said, “Oh, he’s just on the wrong path.” I had judges giving him break after break after break after break. We were beating our heads against the wall to say, “When’s it going to stop?” His mom and dad I put in prison. I’ve prosecuted his brothers. It’s generational with that family. We’ve been after some of his lieutenants, too. It’s funny because it sounds personal, but it’s not. I’m saddened by the fact that a lot of lives got ruined, including his and his family’s. But I’m so happy that for the next 10 or so years, we can tell the community that he won’t be on our streets.

How about the Dec. 5 incident involving Juan Gonzalez, who allegedly shot at two state police officers?

The feds want to take a look at the firearms case – the fact that he’s a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. There are mandatory federal prison penalties for that. The shooting at the police officers remains my case. As far as jurisdiction is concerned, the feds don’t supersede us at all. Our system is set up on states’ rights, so we have what’s called concurrent jurisdiction. That means the feds could prosecute him all day long, and I could prosecute him all day long. However, the feds do have a policy that if there are local charges, they will not get involved unless they have the cooperation of the local prosecutor. In this case, I spoke with the local attorney’s office and they were very much interested. They will take those cases and assume them.

In this particular case, we spoke and I’ve got the state charges. Nobody shoots at our cops. They’re going to be held accountable for that. So, we’re going to do the state charges – the assault charges. We are going to stay with those cases, and the feds are going to take the gun charge and prosecute that. So, he could potentially face some pretty good time.

There was a mobile home fire on Straight Arrow Road Nov. 27, where a body was discovered. We’ve received a tip that Juan Gonzalez is a person of interest in that case.

I can tell you that he’s someone who’s been mentioned, someone law enforcement has been looking at as potentially knowing about that incident or being involved – or something. That’s all I can say right now.

This is the start of your fifth term. What has made you stay in the job this long?

Well, I was born and raised in Questa. This is my home. My family’s here, my history’s here. My wife’s from Taos. I grew up service oriented. My dad worked at the mine. He was an officer in the union. He was on the school board. There was always something going on in our family that was public service oriented. I just like the idea of serving the public – I love serving the public. Plus, I’ve always believed you can be out there [expletive] and moaning – or you can get in there and do something about it. When I started prosecuting, I realized that I can help people way more than any judge or defense attorney can. I have discretion and I have that authority, and I’ve been able to help quite a lot of people.

Will you run again?

I’ll be eligible to retire, so I don’t know. I won’t close the door totally on it. I do love what I’m doing. It really depends what the alternatives are out there. If the alternatives out here – if I’m not real happy with them — or others aren’t happy and maybe they want me to run again, I would entertain it. But I think there will be some other people stepping up, some people with some fresh ideas, some new perspective on how to do prosecution. I’m looking forward to someone stepping up and dedicating themselves to this job.