The 64-count criminal complaint filed against Secretary of State Dianna Duran late Friday relies heavily on campaign finance filings.
New Mexico In Depth took a look at Duran’s filings from 2009, when the office first began collecting information electronically, through 2014.
Most of Duran’s spending went toward advertising, as illustrated in the chart below, where expenses were categorized by NMID. The $600 expense for “Equipment and work on campaign” is among the violations cited in the complaint filed by Attorney General Hector Baldaras’ investigators. They say that Paul Davis, the recipient, never received the check, which was instead deposited in Duran’s account.
Duran’s largest payments were to McCleskey Media Strategies for more than $265,000 in advertising buys. The campaign paid more than $14,000 in travel expenses at various hotels, gas stations and such.
Duran’s campaign also paid her husband, Leo Barraza, nearly $3,200 in travel expenses and reimbursements. The criminal complaint accuses her of “embezzle(ing) or convert(ing) to her own use $2,850” by writing checks to Barraza, not all of which appear to have been reported in campaign filings.
The campaign paid Duran $1,250 in three payments for travel expenses. The complaint says Duran wrote an addition $511 check to herself from the campaign in November that wasn’t reported in state filings.
On the contribution side, one of the counts alleges Duran deposited a $500 contribution from lobbyists Marla Shoats and Dan Weaks in her personal account instead of her campaign account. In lobbyist filings, Shoats and Weaks reported two contributions to Duran in 2014, one for $250 in late October and a second for $500 in mid-December.
That donation check is one of several from a range of people and businesses, including Mack Energy Corp., which the criminal complaint says Duran deposited in her personal account instead of her campaign account.
Below is a complete listing of the Duran campaign’s expenses from 2009 through 2014. In a few instances, names of payees have been standardized, for example, USPS, United States Postal Service and U.S. Postal Service all were changed to the latter.
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