Sunland Park Mayor pro tem, city manager arrested

LAS CRUCES -- Sunland Park Mayor Pro Tem Daniel
Salinas and City Manager Jaime Aguilera were arrested Saturday evening
in an ongoing investigation into city government.Each faces
identical charges -- conspiracy to commit extortion, tampering with
evidence and conspiracy. They were jailed in lieu of posting $50,000
cash bonds.The investigation continues, said District Attorney
Amy Orlando. No further information on the arrests was available
Saturday night.The arrests Saturday came after searches were
conducted by New Mexico State Police and investigators for the district
attorney's office on Friday at the home of Salinas and at his office at
Sunland Park City Hall.Salinas is one of three candidates for
mayor. Early voting in that election has started. One of his opponents,
Gerardo Hernandez, alleged last week that someone was attempting to
blackmail him in an effort to get him to drop out of the race.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. Hernandez refused. A video of Hernandez with a topless dancer was leaked last week to local media.

Hernandez
said he and his campaign manager were in their campaign office in
Sunland Park when a man he had been considering as a publicity
specialist arrived at 8 or 9 p.m. one day in January with a woman who
Hernandez said he had never met before. "We started to have a few
drinks,"Hernandez said. "She started to lap-dance for us. That's what it was -- only a lap dance."Salinas
denied last week that he had anything to do with that incident. He
suggested that Hernandez was highlighting the blackmail threat to divert
attention from the video.Investigators with a search warrant
arrived at Salinas' home about 7:45 a.m. Friday as parents were taking
their children to the nearby Desert View Elementary School. They seized
one vehicle and some electronics during the raid at Salinas' home and
another one later that morning at City Hall.It was the second
raid of the week at the Sunland Park government building. Investigators
also combed through city records Tuesday. City Manager Aguilera said
investigators on Tuesday wanted to see a video recorded by a new
surveillance camera at City Hall, as well as information from city
computers, the Times reported earlier.Aguilera issued a news
release last week saying he's "cooperating fully" with various agencies,
including the secretary of state's office -- which is looking into
allegations by Hernandez that absentee voting applications had been
improperly withheld from him -- the state police and the district
attorney. "We have not been informed what the state police or the
district attorney's office are searching for, but cooperated with their
requests," he said in the statement. "We are confident that city
operations have been performed according to state statues (sic) and we
welcome the outside parties investigating whatever complaints they have
received."Salinas and Aguilera are scheduled to make their first court appearances on Monday, Orlando said.

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