So far the Democratic Primary Race for the Doña Ana County District Attorney’s Office has been a contentious one with both candidates filing complaints with the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office.
In the latest of a series of complaints made to the Secretary of State’s Office, District Attorney Candidate James Dickens accused his opponent, incumbent Mark D’Antonio of violating campaign finance laws for a personal loan his campaign received.
“Mr. D’Antonio received a $7,000 loan from an individual,” Dickens said. “And contributions from individuals are capped at $2,500, so calling it a loan, or calling it a contribution doesn’t make any difference, it’s above the limit.”
D’Antonio says the loan came from his fiancé, who he shares joint accounts with, and the loan may have incorrectly categorized in his campaign finance report.
“I share all my resources with my live-in Fiancée who I’ve lived with for 4 years,” D’Antonio said. “We’ve lived together in harmony and we’ve shared all expenses and everything, that’s where the money came from. So, it was a loan to my account. Maybe, we inadvertently miscategorized it, and if I did, I’ll immediately correct that, and I’ll admit that. But it was done in good faith, and it was done out of joint accounts.”
James Dickens has also filed complaints in regards to flyers and signs that supported D’Antonio without information on who paid for the campaign material, D’Antonio says the material did not come from him, and was not approved by his campaign.
Mark D’Antonio has filed his own ethics complaint with the Secretary of State’s office accusing Dickens of using the electronic Case Management System for prosecutors, which contains confidential case information, to look up cases in D’Antonio’s office in order to campaign against him.
“Mr. Dickens purposely used government resources, specifically state resources to do campaign research on me,” D’Antonio said. “He admitted it, the record is clear, the appropriate agencies verified it. So, it’s a clear violation and that’s all I have to say about that.”
Dickens says there could be any number of reasons that he looked at the cases for his daily work responsibilities, and denies using the system to gather campaign information.
“I think what we’re down to is the simple fact that he doesn’t want his information out there to the public,” Dickens said. “He doesn’t want his stats out there, and he’s trying to hide it in anyway, and since he can’t hide from the stats anymore what he’s trying to do is simply blame the person who place the stats out there in the public. I at no time used government resources in accessing this information, and certainly there is no confidential information in making stats open to the public, it’s something the public needs to know to make an informed decision on who to vote for.”
Mark D’Antonio says since he’s been in office, he’s made improvements from the previous administration, and hopes to continue that if he’s re-elected.
“We’re going to continue what we’re doing now,” D’Antonio said. “That is to bring justice to Dona Ana County, we’re going to tighten some things, we need to do better in truancy, we’re going to work on that very very hard. We need to work on getting kids out of gangs, we’re going to work hard on that.”
James Dickens says he hopes to bring his experience to the District Attorney’s office.
“It’s experience,” Dickens said. “I’ve been doing this exact job for 16 years, I’ve done over 200 trials, I’ve been there done that in the state system, I know how to get the best out of each and every case for the victims.”
Doña Ana County primary elections will be held on June 7th.
